Powerless: How One Mistake Shut Down America

About this episode

This episode explores the largest blackouts in U.S. history and the vulnerabilities in the power grid.

Send us Fan Mail We feared Y2K would shut down the world — it didn’t. But twice in American history, the power grid failed anyway. This episode explores the largest blackouts in U.S. history — from the 1965 Northeast blackout to the massive 2003 outage that disconnected 50 million people in minutes. We break down what went wrong, the hidden vulnerabilities in the power grid, the financial impact, and what was done to prevent it from happening again. Then, we examine how Texas’s 2021 winter...

People in this episode

Hosts: JD, Lamont

Topics covered

• power grid failures
• blackouts
• historical events
• financial impact
• preventive measures

Keywords

• blackouts
• power grid
• Y2K
• Northeast blackout
• Texas winter storm

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Texas

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