It’s the night that the lights went out in New York City. A single lightning flash could light a light bulb for over three months. But on this date in 1977, lightning shut off light bulbs all over the Big Apple.
It was a hot and muggy night on July 13, 1977. Tremendous thunderstorms caused major transmission lines bringing power to the New York City area to trip out, plunging millions into darkness for 24 hours.
At 8:37 p.m., lightning knocked out two major transmission lines, tripping off a major power plant. At 8:55 p.m., two more lines were tripped out, including one from Canada. Other major power connections would fail as they became overloaded.
It was a dark time in New York City, literally and figuratively. The city was in the middle of a severe financial
crisis. Unemployment and crime rates were high.
Civil chaos erupted during the 1977 blackout, unlike a similar outage in 1965 which was accompanied by calm. Mobs looted and burned, causing more than $1 billion in damage. Over one thousand fires were set and hundreds of false alarms sent city fire crews on wild goose chases.
The city’s economic situation has been cited as a factor in why the 1977 outage turned ugly. The weather may have played a role, since it was sticky and hot in 1977 as opposed to the 1965 blackout that occurred in the cool of November.
– Bill Murray
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