NY Times article describes the New York portion of the cascading failure of the electrical network on August 14, 2003 that resulted in blacking out much of the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metro region. Closure of a power plant in Ohio around 2 PM led to a chain reaction of unexpected "tidal waves" of electric power surging back and forth between Ontario and New York, finally overwhelming the transmission grid and tripping protective breakers, plunging the Northeast into darkness two hours later. 90 Seconds That Left Tens of Millions of People in the Dark.
This story illustrates the studies of Columbia's Duncan J. Watts and Notre Dame's Al Barabasi regarding the nature of cascading failures developing over time until they reach a critical threshold beyond which network collapse is unstoppable. See also review of Barabasi's book Linked: The New Science of Networks
DougSimpson.com/blog
Posted by dougsimpson at August 26, 2003 06:29 AM | TrackBack