Word: conned
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...severe summer thunderstorm had just swept across the green suburban hills of northern Westchester in the vicinity of the Indian Point No. 3 nuclear power plant overlooking the Hudson River. At 8:37 p.m., according to Con Ed's preliminary analysis, flashes of lightning knocked out two 345-kilovolt lines. That immediately cut off all the electricity from the 900-megawatt Indian Point facility, and the nuclear plant was promptly and safely shut down. Then, while duty officers at Con Ed's main control center in Manhattan-a huge, display-filled room somewhat like Mission Control in Houston...
Outside New York, there were quite a few cocky power company executives who said about the possibility of blackouts: "No, it can't happen here." There were some who pooh-poohed Consolidated Edison's "act of God" explanation as unconvincing. There were a number who blamed Con Ed's own defects and described with pride the superior safety features of their own systems. Yet on closer consideration, few power executives were willing to say flatly-and publicly-that they could offer ironclad security against the same sort of failure...
Power lines travel into most cities from several directions, but all the major cables connecting Con Ed to other pools of electric power run in a single corridor from the north. Last week a storm apparently knocked out all eight of these lines within an hour. Says an executive of Chicago's Commonwealth Edison: "If a major line goes out here, we can interchange a lot more easily and flexibly." One reason for the difference: Commonwealth Edison can more readily obtain right-of-way for power lines in Midwestern farmlands than can Con Ed in the crowded Eastern Megalopolis...
...nation's largest utility, serving more customers (9.0 million) and producing more revenues ($2.9 billion) than any other. As the company that almost everyone living in and around the Big Apple loves to hate, it supplies more than just gas, steam and the costliest electricity in the country. Con Ed's softspoken, Wisconsin-bred chairman, Charles Luce, 60, himself says that the big firm also provides ''a tremendous catharsis for the pent-up tensions of the city. If we didn't have a Con Ed, we'd have to invent...
After New York's big blackout last week-in many respects a replay of the 1965 power shutdown that darkened eight states in the Northeast-that old Con Ed catharsis began working overtime. Federal, state and local agencies launched investigations of the power failure. Politicians and editorial writers howled over the fact that only three days before the city went dark, Con Ed's $200,000-a-year chairman had said he could "guarantee" that the chances of another blackout were remote. New York Mayor Abraham Beame summarily convicted Con Ed's management of "gross negligence...