Episode 4 — The clock that ran backward

Dateline: 17 November 1965, control room, Niagara Mohawk Power building, 535 Washington Street, Buffalo, New York

The Buffalo Evening News reported that operators at the Washington Street facility logged a sudden drop in frequency at 5:16 p.m. and began shedding load under standing orders. Street lights failed across the west side within minutes. The paper noted that several electric clocks in the building stopped, then resumed when power returned after dark. No injuries were listed. The outage was attributed to a relay trip on the interconnected grid.

The account repeated in Buffalo kitchens today does not mention the grid or the newspaper. People say a clock on the control-room wall at 535 Washington Street ran backward for eleven minutes while the lights stayed on, and that the operators on duty that evening left their badges in a drawer and did not return for the next shift. The building is described as still standing, with a service entrance that opens only when the clock above it is an hour slow. No one in the retelling recalls a relay or a load shed.