# "Blackout" or "Rolling Blackout"?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blackout-or-rolling-blackout/195488>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 15, 2003, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blackout-or-rolling-blackout/195488 "2003-08-15T23:40:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![randwill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@randwill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randwill)\
**Post date:** [August 15, 2003, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blackout-or-rolling-blackout/195488/1 "2003-08-15T23:40:31Z")

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I’ve twice heard President W refer to the electrical problems of yesterday as a “Rolling Blackout”. Is this the correct term? I always thought “Rolling Blackouts” were when the energy company shut power off to different sections of a city for a few hours at a time to lessen the load on power plants.

If this is correct someone should tell him. Of course, nobody has the guts to tell him how to pronouce “nuclear” so…

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**Author:** ![KenGr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecc23a/32.png) [@KenGr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KenGr)\
**Post date:** [August 16, 2003, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blackout-or-rolling-blackout/195488/2 "2003-08-16T00:47:05Z")

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You are correct, although I doubt that this is going to confuse anyone or lead to inappropriate corrective actions. What he probably meant was “cascading blackouts” where one blackout event results in successive power losses. “Blackout” is usually a single sudden event.