In 1965, the great power outage began when a design flaw a Sir Adam Beck II generating station in Niagara Falls, Canada cascaded power from North-going hyrdro lines onto the US power grid bringing it to a grinding halt. Presented below is a view of that station today.
Water is taken from the Niagara river at a point several kilometers ahead of the falls.
A drive down the Niagara Parkway towards Fort Erie reveals the intakes with their huge shut-off gates. Huge tunnels bored below the city of Niagara Falls carry water to the generating station which is located many kilometers downstream of the falls in Queenston. Pentstocks carry the enormous amount of water down to the bottom of the Niagara gorge where the generating turbines sit The power of the falling water drives turbine blades mounted horizontally to spina vertical shaft which in turn powers a generator mounted above. The entire process is monitored and controlled from this room. Since there are a number of parallel generators, these must be synchronized accurately.