IT’S WORTH PAYING ATTENTION to Sean Gorman’s dissertation on electric power system vulnerabilities. Here’s more, including a link to the IEEE statement on electric power reliability, and the deterioration of the grid.

UPDATE: Here’s more.

THE HOMELAND SECURITY WEBSITE has, as of 9:58 p.m., absolutely no information on the blackout. The lead item is still the Blaster Worm. (Via The Command Post). But what’s really damning is that it didn’t even occur to me to see if they had anything.

UPDATE: FEMA’s website has info, and a reader says that it has been doing a good job — though I don’t see that much info. Funny that Homeland Security hasn’t updated, and hasn’t even linked it.

THIS POWER LOAD GRAPH suggests that things are starting to come back, at least in Connecticut. This one, too. That’s consistent with reader Max Rosenthal’s note, below. Plus, it’s kind of cool.

UPDATE: Now this is funny: “Bloggers Among Hardest Hit by Massive Blackout.”

ENERGY BLOGGER LYNN KIESLING will be on Greta Van Susteren’s show on Fox tonight (10 p.m. Eastern) to talk about the blackout.

Vish Subramanian emails:

Do you find it shocking that 2 years after 9/11, a power outage causes a complete breakdown of transport in NY. Even BUSES were down? Plus NO cell phone access?

Well, I heard cellphone service was intermittent. But, yeah, there ought to be ways to keep traffic flowing, and cellphones should be at least as reliable as landline service now — they’re past the point of being luxuries and toys, and are actually more important in an emergency.

And Jeff Jarvis reports:

Well, this apparently isn’t an act of terrorism. But it certainly demonstrated to bad guys how easy it would be to bring down the Northeast of America.

It doesn’t look like we learned a lot on September 11. The evacuation of New York is a frigging mess — worse than it was then.

Let’s learn something, this time. Okay? Especially as this isn’t really an “evacuation” — just a bunch of people trying to get home from work without power.

BLAME CANADA:

An extraordinary power blackout hit steamy U.S. and Canadian cities Thursday, stranding people in subways, closing nine nuclear power plants from New York to Michigan and choking streets with workers driven from stifling offices.

Officials were looking at a power transmission problem from Canada as the most likely cause of the biggest outage in U.S. history, said a spokeswoman for New York Gov. George Pataki. There was no sign of terrorism, officials in New York and Washington agreed.

The article says 50 million people were affected. Seriously, though, this sort of thing happens with the electrical grid, for a variety of reasons that are hard to address. The key is to be prepared — which means emergency power for things that people really need.

I wonder why more traffic lights at vital intersections don’t have backup power? It seems to be a question of cost — five to ten thousand dollars each — but it seems like it would be worth it to prevent the kinds of massive traffic jams we’ve seen. Heck, even a half-hour of backup would help get the roads cleared.

UPDATE: Here’s more on that problem, suggesting that doing something about traffic signals might help:

In scenes no doubt repeated throughout the affected area, the city’s wide avenues turned into rivers of pedestrians as people swarmed through gnarled traffic in streets devoid of traffic signals. Traffic agents gamely tried to keep people and machines separated.

Of course, in New York you’ve also got the problem of subways and trains without power.

UPDATE: But Susanna Cornett reports:

Lights are coming back bits and pieces in New Jersey, apparently faster than in NY. Traffic is not being allowed into Manhattan from New Jersey; Holland and Lincoln Tunnels and GW Bridge are out only.

People are standing on the street corners in Manhattan, some for hours, to get out into the outer boroughs. Buses are on their regular routes, and some are passing passengers empty, causing some anger. You’ll probably hear more about that.

There’s probably a good reason for that, but you can’t blame people for being upset.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Warren Cheney emails:

While it would be counterproductive to regale you with Power Outage Stories, I will pass along the info that while the Canadian government and CNN are reporting that the cause of said failure is due to a lightning strike upon the Niagara Falls power complex, WBEN radio has been reporting that the local office of the National Weather Service and their Canadian counterparts at Environment Canada can’t seem to find any sort of lightning strikes in the area short of, say, Chicago.

Local residents were asking, “Lightning? Here? Wha?” seeing that we just got rid of the weather system that could have produced said lightning a day or three ago…

Not that I’m surprised about this…

This lightning strike map certainly doesn’t show anything near Niagara.

FREEDOM TO PLAY SOCCER? Yep. And it’s a big deal, if you’re a girl in Afghanistan.

POWER UPDATE: Reader Steve Hornbeck emails: “Power is on in a lot of Albany, N.Y. Thankfully, the power in my neighborhood was only off for 30 minutes so my first beer of the Great Northeast Blackout is satisfyingly frosty.”

Meanwhile, Crooked Timber links to a paper on cascading failures that may be relevant, though most readers will prefer a frosty beer.

UPDATE: Hossein Derakshan reports that “Toronto is dead, almost,” and observes: “Ok, I just have to say this: The whole concept of modern society is based on electricity and when it goes out, big cities would be worse than deserts.”

Charles Donefer, on the other hand, uses the occasion to draw regional distinctions.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Corner is reporting that some power has returned in New York. And here’s the best conspiracy theory so far, from reader Douglas Brosz:

Maybe someone at the NY Times will pick this up but my hunch is that this blackout was orchestrated by the White House to lower electricity expectations in Iraq.

Of course! It’s all Karl Rove’s fault! He sure is tricky. . . .

MORE: Max Rosenthal emails at 9:45:

For general reference, power’s now back in Fairfield, CT. The sections near the Bridgeport grid seemed to have come back on a while beforehand; all of the town was congregated in the lighted westward areas having dinner when we drove out for pizza. But the New York-side areas seem to be kosher again as well.

Kosher pizza? I know where you can get some in Grenoble. . . .

READER ROBERT CONNOLLY just emailed from the World Financial Center in New York that he’s lost power and that the rest of the city seems down, too. (How did he email? Beats me.)

UPDATE: Connolly responds: “Generator, my man. Generator.” He adds: “Supposedly, the NorthEast has been hit with a massive black-out. My wife is down in Barnegat, NJ – they lost power too.”

I was a little kid during the Great Northeastern Blackout. I remember it clearly.

ANOTHER UPDATE: NPR is reporting outages in Detroit, and in other cities, including Canada. Connolly wondered if terrorism might be involved. Hard not to think about it, of course, and I do recall reports about hack attacks on U.S. power companies, but you don’t need terrorist hackers to get power outages in August.

Andrew Hofer emails: “We’re on generator and backup power. I”m across the street from the WTC site and the power’s mostly out here as well.”

MORE: This is what’s on the New York Times cover: “Power Outages Reported Along East Coast; North to Toronto, South to Maryland and West to Cleveland and Detroit (4:32 PM ET).” This Yahoo! story says that “Power outages were reported in the New York metropolitan area and Detroit, as well as in Toronto and Ottawa, witnesses said.”

STILL MORE: Bill Hobbs emails:

CNN reports a fire at a Con-Ed plant in NY.

Scary if one fire at one plant can knock down that much of the power grid. If it isn’t terrorism, I bet al Qaeda is going to school on it.

It was a relay the size of my fist that caused the Great Northeastern Blackout, I believe.

STILL MORE: Boston.com reports:

A major power outage has hit much of New York City as well as parts of Long Island, Connecticut and the cities of Albany, Cleveland, Toledo, and Detroit, and Toronto and Ottawa in Canada. In Manhattan, thousands of people are trapped in elevators and on subway trains; CNN is reporting that there is some panic and fear among the thousands of people who are pouring out of office buildings onto the street. Power is also out at LaGuardia and JFK airports. CNN is also reporting that the Con Edison power plant in NYC is on fire.

Bill Hobbs sends another email: “CNN reports Niagara Power Grid overloaded and is down; NYC officials say terrorism not likely.”

Boston.com seems to be updating steadily. And Mindles Dreck on Asymmetrical Information is promising firsthand coverage. [LATER: Here’s some.] Connolly sends another report:

I’m happy to report that people are staying very cool here – no panic whatsoever. Many are calling it a day and preparing themselves for a long journey home. All I can say is, thank God for NYWaterway. Hoboken never looked so good.

Have a safe trip. Courtesy of reader Paul Dowgewicz, here’s a real time graph of power load in the Connecticut valley. You can see the dropoff. Here’s a link to a map of North American power grids, and there’s more information here. And here’s a link to histories of the big New York blackouts of 1965 and 1977.

LAST UPDATE TO THIS POST: The Command Post is all over this story. And here’s an excellent report from the Washington Post — with video. And Perry DeHavilland finds a small positive development. . . .

YOU CAN LISTEN to my interview on NPR’s Day to Day program here now, if you’re interested.

WELL, THIS LOOKS LIKE GOOD NEWS:

A top al Qaeda member and a leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, Riduan Isamuddin — also known as Hambali — was arrested as part of a CIA undercover operation in the last 24 hours. The operation was cooperation with an unnamed Southeast Asian country that wants its participation kept secret, officials told ABCNEWS.

The CIA called the arrest the “most significant capture since that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” who was captured in March 2003, and believed to command al Qaeda’s global terror network and have masterminded the 9/11 attacks. In the past, the CIA has called the Indonesia-born Hambali the “Osama bin Laden” of Southeast Asia.

Glad they’ve nabbed him.

UPDATE: Pejman Yousefzadeh notes that this is more evidence that Iraq didn’t distract us from the pursuit of Al Qaeda. Meanwhile Patrick Belton at OxBlog offers thanks to the — necessarily unnamed — people who pulled this off.

THE 2004 EDITION OF MICHAEL BARONE’S ALMANAC OF AMERICAN POLITICS IS OUT, and interestingly enough Barone has looked back to see what he got right, and wrong, in previous issues. What’s more, he’s put that part online. Anyone interested in politics should find it fascinating reading.

UPDATE: Hmm. Some readers are getting a “subscriber only” message on the link to the “online” part. I didn’t. I’ll try and figure out what’s wrong.

RADLEY BALKO WRITES:

You might say that today, President Bush is doing many of the same things President Clinton did, only backwards, and in cowboy boots.

No, not those things. Get your mind out of the gutter.

GIRISH MAYA offers another glowing review of the documentary Spellbound. I hope I get to see it.

SET YOUR ALARM CLOCKS: Tony Adragna and Will Vehrs of Shouting ‘Cross the Potomac will be on C-SPAN with Brian Lamb tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM.

WINDS OF CHANGE has a huge war news roundup. Links galore!

AT LAST, SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS! I’ve made it my new slogan: “He sits upon his dark throne, sipping his puppy, while scanning the blogosphere for a few links that will not threaten his power.”

Heh. Well, the Aeron is charcoal gray. I guess that counts as a “dark throne.”

HERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT THE GREEN CANDIDATE in the California recall race.

PHIL CARTER TO PAUL KRUGMAN: “Do your homework!” He has a lot of links to supporting information. Excerpt:

Prof. Krugman could have written a brilliant piece on the economic calculus of a government contractor, and how rational choices are made in this situation. But he didn’t. He ignored these details of government contract law and corporate decisionmaking to paint the corporations as the villain. That’s sloppy reporting, as far as I’m concerned.

Read it all.

JUST TAPED AN INTERVIEW for the new NPR/Slate show “Day to Day” — it’ll air at about 12:15 Eastern time. The subject was conservative critics of the California recall. You can see if it’s on in your area, and link to streaming audio, here.

OVER AT OXBLOG, David Adesnik is confronting a world turned upside down.

THE CALIFORNIA RECALL IS CONSERVATIVE, writes David Hogberg, who disagrees with George Will and Howard Owens.

HENRY MILLER SAYS WE’RE BLOWING IT ON WEST NILE. I think he’s right.

HERE’S MORE on Reporters Without Borders and the U.N. Human Rights Commission:

It is telling what nations voted for and against Reporters Without Borders. On the side of Cuba and Libya were China, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the Congo, Pakistan and South Africa, as well as 17 other governments that are equally as respectful of the rule of law. Voting to defend a free press — and against the joke that Libya chairs the human-rights commission — were the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy and 19 other freedom-loving countries, including a handful that used to be behind the Iron Curtain and thus have a keen sense of oppression.

The fact that a U.N. council is split 27-23 over transparency with the media serves as a reminder that freedom of the press is not something to be taken for granted in a large part of the world.

It is also a reminder — as if we needed one — that far from being a Parliament Of Nations imbued with respect for all that’s good, the United Nations is, in fact, a dictators’ club whose chief role is protecting the perks of dictators.

UPDATE: Read this piece on the U.N. Human Rights Commission’s plans to expand its jurisdiction.

TELL RALPH PETERS TO STOP MINCING WORDS and say what he really means. I think he’s painting with a somewhat broad brush here, myself.

VIRGINIA POSTREL WRITES:

If you go to Lowe’s to get a key copied, you have a choice. For $1.24, you can get a standard brass key. For $2.97, you can choose from a half-dozen colorful patterns — flowers, American flags, tie-dyes, flames.

The more expensive key will not open the door any better. The difference is purely aesthetic.

I’m up to page 100 in her new book, which has a lot more to say on the subject.