The outage was likely caused by an employee removing a piece of monitoring equipment...

[Adsos Letter]

...that was causing problems at a power substation in southwest Arizona, officials said.

http://news.yahoo.com/power-outage-hits-5m-us-southwest-mexico-034451499.html

"Hey, hon, how was work today?"

"Well..."

[Journeyman]

1. "Hey, hey, hey, Ralphie - whatcha think this switch is for?" . . .

[krispos42]

2. "... next, remove part number 10784-40"

*click!* *beeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu*

5 million customers are plunged into darkness



*snick-click* A flashlight turns on.

"Well, shit. What the hell happened? I did just like it said... remove part 10784-40."

He looks very closely for almost a minute at the technical manual

"'...next, remove part number 10784-4O'"

Pauses


"Oh, fuck."

[Throckmorton]

4. A little weak on his/her peer checking,

and concurrent verifications. Its also possible that something fell apart while being tested/restored.

[K8-EEE]

6. LOL!! nt

[Throckmorton]

3. Probably doing a protective relay calibration

and put the stabs back wrong. Much of the protective relaying in the power grid dates to the 1960's and uses pilot wire technology.

[Bozita]

5. Homer? ... Homer, is that you?

[NBachers]

7. The old "Lone Employee" dodge

"Di dee di di well I guess I'll go find some random piece of equipment to change all by myself . . . "

If that doesn't fly, maybe they can try floating the "Rogue Contractor" ploy