While visiting Grand Coulee Dam, my family and I were surprised to see that the visitor's center was dark. It was a sunny day, so we thought the center might have tinted windows, but as we got closer we realized there were no lights on. We went in and saw that none of the displays were working. Suddenly it became clear: there was no power to the center. Due to a technical difficulty of some kind, the visitor's center that sat only hundreds of feet from a hydroelectric dam had no power.

How could something be so close to the power source, yet not be "plugged in"?