Electricity has now been restored across much of the northeast region of Canada and the United States, but officials are urging consumers and businesses to conserve electricity to avoid the possibility of rolling blackouts to prevent the grid from becoming overburdened as it stabilizes after the worst power cuts in North American history.

At its peak, the blackout, thought now to have originated in Ohio, left more than 50 million people without power in eight US states and eastern Canada, including major cities like New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland, Toronto and Ottawa.

The Nation offices, located in the Union Square area of Manhattan, were without power for about thirty-six hours, which meant that our website was temporarily unavailable, and our e-mail and phone systems were also down. Fortunately, everything seems to be functioning normally now.

Watch this space for more info and, in the meantime, check out these articles and op-eds for interesting quick hits on what the blackout means.

Top Ten Things to Do in a Blackout by Farai Chideya, Alternet, August 15

Power Outage Traced To Dim Bulb In White House by Greg Palast, CommonDreams, August 15

System’s Crash was Predicted by Peter Behr, Washington Post, August 15

This Grid Should Not Exist by Harvey Wasserman, Free Press, August 16

An Industry Trapped by a Theory by Robert Kuttner, New York Times, August 16

Drunk on Power by Bill Richardson, New York Times, August 16

When the Lights Go Out by Guardian Editors, The Guardian, August 16

A ‘third world electricity grid’ by David Adam, The Guardian, August 16