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Grid and the Village: Losing Electricity, Finding Community, Surviving Disaster
In January 1998 a massive ice storm descended on New York, New England, and eastern Canada. It crushed power grids from the Great Lakes to the North Atlantic, forcing thousands of people into public shelters and leaving millions of others in their homes without electricity. In this riveting book Stephen Doheny-Farina presents an insider’s account of these events, describing the destruction of the electric network in his own village and the emergence of the face-to-face interactions that took its place. His stories examine the impact of electronic communications on community, illuminating the relationship between electronic and human connections and between networks and neighborhoods, and exploring why and how media portrayals of disasters can distort authentic experience.
Doheny-Farina begins by discussing the disaster and tracing the origins of the storm. He then goes back two hundred years to tell how this particular electric grid was built, showing us the sacrifices people made to create the grids that (usually) connect us to one another. Today’s power grid, says Doheny-Farina, has become more vulnerable than we realize, as demand begins to outstrip capacity in urban centers around the nation. His book reminds us what those grids mean―both positively and negatively―to our electronically saturated lives.
Doheny-Farina begins by discussing the disaster and tracing the origins of the storm. He then goes back two hundred years to tell how this particular electric grid was built, showing us the sacrifices people made to create the grids that (usually) connect us to one another. Today’s power grid, says Doheny-Farina, has become more vulnerable than we realize, as demand begins to outstrip capacity in urban centers around the nation. His book reminds us what those grids mean―both positively and negatively―to our electronically saturated lives.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published August 11, 2001
12 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 21, 2019
Select quotes:
"The way Americans chose to develop their power grids shaped the kinds of livea they could lead. And, of course, electric power has become the foundation upon which we live. In an age of mistrust of institutions and sources of authoeity, few question the necessity of electric power" (27).
"We all have our snapshot and audio memories: the ice wrapped half an inch thick around branches and bending full-grown trees to the ground, the sharp crack of those trees giving way to their crystal burden [...] the stillness, the isolation. But this is what I'll tell my grandchildren : that we took care of each other" (187).
"The way Americans chose to develop their power grids shaped the kinds of livea they could lead. And, of course, electric power has become the foundation upon which we live. In an age of mistrust of institutions and sources of authoeity, few question the necessity of electric power" (27).
"We all have our snapshot and audio memories: the ice wrapped half an inch thick around branches and bending full-grown trees to the ground, the sharp crack of those trees giving way to their crystal burden [...] the stillness, the isolation. But this is what I'll tell my grandchildren : that we took care of each other" (187).
May 6, 2022
This is what happens when there is Blackouts in 2000s, imagine the disaster if this happens in 2020s?
January 29, 2009
Very finely crafted.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews