The Nation: WHY THE LIGHTS WENT OUT

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Could the disaster have been averted? In the immediate post-mortems after the blackout, some critics suggested that Con Ed should have appealed to the public to shut off appliances, thus reducing load on the overburdened system. But could the message have got out quickly enough—and would the city have responded? Others wondered why the controllers did not react more vigorously by blacking out more areas sooner to save the overall system. Some even suspected that there might be an undiscovered yet crucial flaw in the network's design or equipment. As investigators explore these and other nagging questions about New York's calamity, every major utility in the country will be carefully listening to the answers.