Overseers Missed Big Picture as Failures Led to Blackout The New York Times' analysis, based on review of phone transcripts, interviews and timelines from the August 14 blackout offers what the Times called "a far deeper appreciation not only of what crucial elements went wrong that day, but also of the fundamental weaknesses in the way the nation's electricity grid is overseen and policed, especially in the Midwest." The Times does not point to error by any one person or organization, but a combination of systemic failures that allowed small faults to cascade into a collapse, including:
* the existence of two agencies monitoring interfacing grids, neither of which had real-time "big picture" information about what the other was experiencing or doing;
* temporary failures of computer monitoring systems; and
* lack of authority for controllers to direct corrective action.