On Thu, 18 January 2001, Eric Germann wrote:

The main issue, which may or may not still be one, is that the East half of the US couldn't help because their gird is totally separate and out of phase with the Western grid.

The US and Canada are still divided into essentially three electrical grids: East, West and Texas. Texas choose not to join the national grids because they objected to some policies of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. You can find details about the national grids on the NERC web site. http://www.nerc.com/