The 1977 New York City Blackout

On July 13, 1977, a chain of lightning strikes north of New York City set off a cascade of failures that plunged all five boroughs into darkness. Already strained by a fiscal crisis, soaring crime, and a brutal heat wave, the city faced a very different night from the calm blackout it had weathered twelve years earlier. With Mayor Abraham Beame stranded in the Bronx and control-room operators talking past each other, a summer storm became a catastrophe. Why did the dark fall so differently this time?Send me a text!Support the show