Sabotage in New York?

Why haven't we heard about this?

Apparently, some 100,000 people have been out of power in the New York City borough of Queens for a week now, and no one -- not the service provider, Consolidated Edison (Con Ed); not the State of New York, not the Department of Homeland Security -- knows what caused it.

Or how to fix it. Or how long it will be before power is restored.

So some 100,000 people (maybe more) have had to do without air conditioning for a week of sweltering summer temperatures. With no end in sight.

What's worse, this article suggests to me that this blackout could have some sinister origins:

Utility officials and others said this power failure was perplexing, unlike previous blackouts that darkened large swaths of the city and were corrected in a day or two. This time, new problems have cropped up day after day: dozens of manhole fires, transformer fires and, most seriously, electrical cables' burning out and needing replacement.

"This is a very strange phenomenon," said Joe Flaherty, a consultant to Local 1-2 of the Utility Workers Union of America.

Chris Olert, a Con Edison spokesman, said, "We'll take those cables that were damaged and analyze them, but until then, we won't know what happened."

The blackout has exposed an apparently serious weakness at the utility: its inability to measure the size of a problem.

I recall somewhat of a similar problem a few years ago, with a major blackout in the northeast caused by a cascading power failure in the eelectricalctircal grid traced back to a power plant near Akron, OH, if memory serves. But it was a fast cascading failure. It added up quickly, but eventually it stopped adding. Here, it has not stopped. The original cascade may have been fast, but it hasn't stopped yet. Worse, it's causing physical damage that will be difficult to repair.
Con Ed is an experienced and fairly reputable utility, unlike some utilities closer to home (I won't name names, but if I could I would Put their name in Lights, except knowing them the power would probably go out). If neither they nor their experienced union electrical workers can identity the problem and can only call it "very strange" then I'm going to get suspicious.

Now, I don't want some stupid federale coming out and saying "We know it wasn't terrorism." You don't know what it is, so don't tell me what it isn't.

I have had a nightmare scenario of a terrorist attack that would be subtle but devastating. Find a time period in winter where the temperature over a good part of the country is bitterly cold, like the whole Northeast and Midwest in the teens. Then, using a malicious computer program or even an agent at an electrical plant, cause a catastrophic electrical failure that creates a power outage over the Northeast and Midwest, similar to this outage in Queens, but on the scale of the Northeast power outage several years ago.

People depend on electricity to heat their homes, whether it is for the heat itself or for the thermostat for a gas furnace.

Imagine the Northeast and Midwest being without heat for upwards of a week with daytime temperatures in the teens. The number of deaths could be worse than any WND attack. And it would be so simple to do.

The outage in Queens, even if it was caused by innocent mechanical failure, suggests such a scenario is possible. We better make sure it isn't.