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The author appears to be in Vancouver BC Canada.

In US/Canada, power supply is done via 240V split phase. Therefore, a broken neutral between service and home would have lead to a 120V outlet getting anywhere between 0 and 240V AC. That sure would have lead to something a lot less pleasant than just gzip errors.

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Therefore, a broken neutral between service and home would have lead to a 120V outlet getting anywhere between 0 and 240V AC.

That is true, although loads are normally balanced between the two phases so that the extremes don't often appear, and the neutral could just be intermittent instead of fully broken. But a heavy load (such as the air conditioner in the article) would definitely cause the voltage to swing to one extreme.

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