Not trying to have a big rush to "it's happening" but this is unusual. I am in WA state near the Bangor Undersea Warfare station and Whidby Island (west of the Puget Sound) weather is mild about 50 degrees, no wind or ice, just light rain. My power has been out for over 2 hours and when just checking the outage map, I see that in the last hour nearly the whole county is has gone out. Power outages are common here due to wind, trees going down and things like that but given the mild conditions and the heightened awareness, I just wanted to comment on it. Any other outages around the country right now?
Edit: Power back on after 4 hour outage.
I've seen quite a few times two fuses blow one after the other. Or if a tree takes down all three lines then three fuses can blow. Sometimes electricians will replace a blown fuse with the wrong size which can cause multiple fuses to blow during the next fault. To cause a widespread outage I assume they'd just open a few main feeders using SCADA. Just a few clicks on a Windows screen and thousands will be out of power. If that was the case it would just go dark; no loud bangs.