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Across Border Finger Pointing
By
Bob Orrick
21 August 2003
The recent power outage in eastern United States and Ontario has been described as the 'largest ever.' No sooner had the lights gone out and the finger-pointing began. A spokesman for New York State governor, George Pataki, said a "power transmission problem in Canada was the most likely cause." In another finger-pointing, New York City's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, suggested "the problem might be a lightning strike in Quebec." Granted, Bloomberg had the decency to couch his comment as a suggestion whereas the Governor's spokesman said outright that the outage was most likely caused by a "power transmission problem in Canada." Neither, I suggest, had the foggiest idea of what caused the power disruption but being in the not-so-wonderful, wacky, weird world of politics felt compelled to say something. Smart politicians know when to frame their comments in a way that answers questions but will not produce a demon that can and probably will come back to bite their backsides. Ill-considered hasty comments often become that famous [or infamous, your pick] 30-second sound bite that bites the comment-maker.
The more serious and professional among the governments and commissions paused long enough to take stock of the situation and to determine the cause of the "largest ever" power outage. Pat Wood, III, chairman of the federal energy regulatory commission said, on 20 August, "we look forward to continuing our close co-operation with the department of energy and other reliability officials as part of the task force effort to piece together reams of available transmission data and determine exactly what contributed to the August 14 blackout. Such a thorough analysis does take time and I would like to echo the energy secretary's plea for patience as we undertake this task. The American and Canadians citizens affected by this event deserve to know all the facts." Spoken like a man who puts his brain in gear before opening his mouth.
In another example of unfortunate comment, a Brendan I. Koerner, responding to "Why Texas has its own power grid" wrote, "Blackout post-mortems have noted that America's electricity system consists of just three regions - the Eastern Interconnection, the Western Interconnection and the Texas Interconnection." The writer went on to state, "The majority of the state's residents live within the region regulated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, an 'island' that generates and supplies all its own electricity - unlike, say, New York City or Detroit, whose residents found out the hard way that lots of their power comes from Canada." While much of the power used in New York and Michigan originates in Ontario, the words "found out the hard way that lots of their power comes form Canada" was out and out innuendo. Again, we have a person opening his mouth before his brain was in gear and uttering comments that were proved to be incorrect. It soon became clear that the trouble spot was not in Canada; however, the innuendo tended to make a connection between the outage and Canada that was unfounded. Some put such comments down as examples of 'yellow journalism.'
[During the Spanish-American War (1898) William Randolph Hurst pioneered -along with Joseph Pulitzer - the form of journalism that became known as 'yellow journalism.' In yellow journalism, the key point is sensationalism rather than truth. Hurst used this form to whip up Americans - nationalism, pride and a desire for aggressive foreign policy became the desire of the American public. It remains so today. During the Spanish-American War, Hurst instructed his reporters to sensationalise the news in order to create frenzy among the American public that would, by extension, increase the circulation of his newspapers. Hurst succeeded and the truth about the War became secondary. For instance, the idea that troops led by Teddy Roosevelt stormed up San Juan Hill is true to a point but was exaggerated greatly by Hurst in order to 'sensationalise' the story. What was not so well known was that Roosevelt's troops were assisted by several African American units that probably saved Roosevelt and his Rough Riders. Hurst played up the charge up San Juan Hill and played down, if he mentioned it at all, the heroics of the Negroes who save the day, thus yellow journalism.]
Within a couple of days of the "largest ever" blackout, professionals determined that the culprit was a glitch in a power plant in Ohio. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows that Ohio is a state in the United States and not a jurisdiction in Canada. Foolish people speak foolish comments and more often than not, without benefit of knowledge.
Interestingly, the Wall Street Journal in its Monday, 18 August edition highlighted the three regions referred to above by Koerner. Included in the Journal's diagram were the 'weak points' within the individual grids that could cause problems. Equally interesting is that none of those grid weak points is situated within Canada; all are within the USA.
For the more than 50-million people who were left in the dark when the lights went out, the news that Canada and the USA have agreed to form a task force to "try to answer the question 'why' and prevent such events in the future" is probably welcome. That said, however, they might want to know why it took the 'largest ever' outage to bring the two countries together on the distribution of electricity within the two jurisdictions when it has been reported widely that both countries, but especially the United States, knew of weaknesses in the grid system. It was one of those weaknesses that caused the outage initially and because of that, the cascading blackouts that followed. Hence, a task force.
One thing is certain, kick the politicians out of the room and let the professionals get on with the grunt. Politicians tend to muddy clear water and create confusion where none exists.
Bob Orrick is a private tutor of English grammar, literature, poetry and Canadian history to off-shore youngsters. His pupils hail from such places as Taiwan, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea and Venezuela. He was previously in international marketing, was a ministerial assistant to a provincial cabinet minister, spent a few years as a reporter then editor of a community newspaper and enjoyed a career in the Royal Canadian Navy.
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