Free The Yellowstone Conundrum by John Randall Page A

that the entire power grid in the Western United States was designed to feed electricity into the blenders and laptops of Los Angeles and Orange Counties in California.
      At 6:40 PST, with the first-shift folk still lounging in the cafeteria, the shit hit the fan.
      A very tired Sharon Evans, hating every minute of her third-shift “promotion” to shift supervisor along with its complete degradation of life-style, impossible rush-hour drive home at 7:30am, noticed a double-blinking of the Oregon-California Intertie light at the upper right-hand corner of her large map of LA and Orange Counties. Unlike “white lights lead to red lights” blinking lights on the electrical grid panel meant nothing but bad news.
      Sharon, 48, built; no, stacked like a brick shithouse, and made the most of it, made a phone connection to BPA, only to hear the equivalent of the scene where the Enterprise comes out of warp and into the attack on Vulcan; people were yelling, equipment beeping, other sounds in the background.
      “Jake, what the fuck is going on!” she shouted, drawing attention near her workstation from others, including her shift-mate Dave Higgins, 38, balding, on his second marriage, from Encino.
      “Earthquake! The Montana Intertie is down!  Seattle and Portland are fucked!”
      ‘ Fucked’ wasn’t normally a word used on the day-to-day circuits because all conversations were taped “for performance reasons.”
      “Richland is off-line; dams on the Snake River are out.”
      “What aren’t you telling me, Jake?” asked Sharon.
      “I’m going to have to cut the Mohave Intertie,“ the Power Control Specialist from Portland replied.
      “You can’t do that, Jake!  You know that.”
      Sharon began snapping her fingers and waving her hands to the crew that was getting ready to leave for the morning.
      “Call Phoenix! Now! Hurry! God! We’re going to go down!” which was directed to her mate Dave Higgins, who was instantly alert.
      “Ben or Jeremy; now, quickly!” urged Sharon.
     

Western Area Power Administration
    Desert Southwest Region
    Phoenix, Arizon a
     
     
      Ben Whitehorse picked up Sharon’s line on the first ring, just as he noticed unusual activity between Colorado and points north on his big map. Then the double red lines between Hoover to Mohave began to blink, indicating automatic re-routing was taking place; Hoover’s dick being sucked while Mohave was taking a break.
      “Wait a minute. What’s happening here?” Ben slapped his desk hard enough for his partner Jeremy Dickson to wake up. 
      The automated system was working without human intervention. Power was sapping out of the Oregon Intertie.  Why? His map didn’t show the other regions; otherwise he would have seen what was happening in Montana. Because of computer programming, LA was to get power from Hoover Dam directly and from Glen Canyon Dam via Phoenix.
      The inmates were in charge of the prison.
      “No! You’re going to suck us dry. Can’t do it!” shouted Ben Whitehorse.
      “Have to have it, Ben!” answered Sharon, shouting.  “We’re going to go down like dominos. We have buys from BPA. Jake is shutting us down! Those cocksuckers at PG&E won’t budge!” which referred to the competing Pacific Gas and Electric Company in nearby San Francisco.
      Ben and Jeremy looked at the cascading map. It would take hours for Glen Canyon to ramp up. Meanwhile the system was being drawn dry from the north (Colorado) and from the west (California). 
      No way was he going to let Phoenix be plundered by juicers in Orange County.
      “I see what’s happening, Sharon. BPA is trying to save what it can. The Montana Intertie is down; WAPA Upper Plains is shutting off the NW in order to protect itself.  Colorado appears to be fucked, but we’re not going to be in the same condition,” replied Ben Whitehorse.
      “What do you mean, Ben?” Sharon’s voice was shrill.
      “You need to shed