The news reports on the blackout (now a week old) are really uninformative as to what has really failed. Something like 12 of 22 feeders in a large area of Queens New York City failed. And reports that "low" voltage (120V) lines got overloaded trying to supply the power that the failed feeders normally would handle. I don't thaink that that is correct, usually such low voltage circuits are fed by separate transformers (like "ploe pigs") and feed a few houses each. And these are not normally interconnected. So power could not "bypass" a failed feeder, overloading the low voltage circuit causing it to literally burn up. But I saw news footage of what looked like a low voltage cable literally arcing over and burning up.
Lots of news time spent showing angry powerless customers (I'd be mad too with many days without power) but no simplified esplinations of what the system looks like and what failed.
