Power grid

Living in a subdivision where the power lines are strung on poles in our back alleys, we have had more than our usual share of power outages this summer. This has been blamed on the rapid expansion of the neighborhood squirrel population because of the loud pop of the short-circuit that preceded every incident. On August 14, my wife wondered aloud how big the squirrel must have been to have popped everything from Detroit to New York City.

The blame game for the massive outage is just starting. We’ll hear about the operators who didn’t open circuit breakers in time, the engineers who didn’t design … » More …