-----Original Message-----
From:	David M. Lerman [SMTP:mdlerma2@gsbmba2.uchicago.edu]
Sent:	03 April, 1997 4:07 AM
Subject:	Re: [Fanfic] (Dark) "Black" By Joseph Palmer.

  Does your country code mean malaysia?  Please regale us with stories of
life in a nation-wide blackout.  How did they occur? 

[Chan Wei Lik]  
Yeah, I'm in Malaysia. 
Do you know the movie "The Trigger Effect"? Where a total electricity and phone blackout occured in the US. Fortunately for us, it was only for a few hours and the phone lines were okay. That was a real help, news filtered through them that the whole nation suffered the same fate.
The first time was in 1994, lightning struck a major power line and tripped the safeties in one power plant, dropping it from the national power grid. The resulting drain shut down the whole grid. One  or two, out of 14, states were unaffected, mine wasn't one of them. It took them hours to restore power, and for weeks afterwards, there were regular blackouts- what the authorities termed "load shedding"- until the damage to the national grid was fully repaired.
They said it would never happen again. Yeah right!
In 1996, I was at my cousin's place in another state when the power failed in the afternoon. Later the news came through that it was another nationwide blackout! And this time EVERY state was affected. And we had planned to have dinner at a restaurant that night. When we saw parts of the city lit, we were hopefull. Unfortunately the restaurant wasn't. Do you know how lousy it was trying to eat in a restaurant with no lights and no air-con? 
It seemed that this blackout was caused by another power station being dropped off the grid. Instead of having too little power in the grid, this time there was too much power and too little stations to handle the overload.
At least they had the power restored pretty quickly this time. And there was no load shedding either. Thank goodness!