ff wrote in message ...
Alaric B Snell wrote:

I remember an EE lecture in college about how they tried to assemble a
nation wide grid,
but that it was impossible to keep the whole thing in phase. IIRC, a low
frequency ripple
would start and slowly build amplitude until circuit breakers along the
line would pop.

Fred

Now this is interesting.. I noticed for several days before the lights
went out that my window fan was making an odd noise, a sort of
resonating sound that I took to be a bearing going South.. Frequency
and duration would be hard to estimate now, but it seemed the sound
was increasing in duration (dunno about any change in frequency,
duration definitely increased) over the days leading up to the
blackout (which is to be expected of a bearing problem), I'm going to
guess I heard it 4-5 times per hour for 3-5 minutes at a time. Anyone
else hear anything similar in those last few days?

John