I felt like we had failed, said director of grid operations Jim Detmers in a pained voice. In my mind, I pictured people stranded in elevators. I pictured people stranded in stores and checkout lines. All I could think of was the Inconvenience, and I'm sitting here thinking...thinking, what rock did we not look under to maybe prevent this? As the focal point of an unprecedented power crisis that has tarnished the Golden State, the California Independent System Operator (California ISO) carries the mixed burden of being a disaster survivor. Established to maintain electrical system reliability for the world's fifth-largest economy, California ISO has been both praised and vilified for its efforts amidst the chaos of blackouts, price volatility, political backlash, and market manipulations by Enron and other ruthless competitors. This book chronicles how the California ISO came to be and what happened during its first five years. More importantly, though, this is the story of the people who make up California ISO and give it an identifiable character and culture--its soul. regulatory record or media accounts of California's unparalleled power emergency.

It's like being in a small town right in the middle of a big city. People belong to their neighborhood first, and that neighborhood belongs to the city. -- Karen Boyle, Seattle neighborhood activist. Neighborhoods and a place where citizens take an active role in finding solutions to the problems of urban life. The efforts of Seattle's neighborhood-based councils and not-for-profit organizations were also seen as part of a national neighborhood movement that achieved prominence in the 1960s and 1970s. history and directions of the neighborhood movement, In the City of Neighborhoods was written and produced by award-winning journalist Arthur J. O'Donnell. The series also highlighted economic survival skills for non-profit organizations during an era of budget constraints. exploration of neighborhood activism with later articles covering the Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) syndrome. This special section, called It's My Backyard, Too, provides insights into the arguments and tactics of those who oppose power plants, transmission lines and other energy developments.

"I felt like we had failed," said director of grid operations Jim Detmers in a pained voice. "In my mind, I pictured people stranded in elevators. I pictured people stranded in stores and checkout lines. All I could think of was the Inconvenience, and I'm sitting here thinking...thinking, what rock did we not look under to maybe prevent this?"

As the focal point of an unprecedented power crisis that has tarnished the Golden State, the California Independent System Operator (California ISO) carries the mixed burden of being a disaster survivor. Established to maintain electrical system reliability for the world's fifth-largest economy, California ISO has been both praised and vilified for its efforts amidst the chaos of blackouts, price volatility, political backlash, and market manipulations by Enron and other ruthless competitors.

This book chronicles how the California ISO came to be and what happened during its first five years.

More importantly, though, this is the story of the people who make up California ISO and give it an identifiable character and culture--its soul. The result is a very human drama that is otherwise unavailable from the regulatory record or media accounts of California's unparalleled power emergency.