Fifteen Years Ago Today.....

[scrabbler1]

...we had a huge blackout here in the northeastern US and Ontario, Canada. It affected about 55 million people.

I was rather fortunate. I was at home in my mostly telecommuting era. I lost power for about 7 hours and suffered no damage or loss.

Any stories of your time during the blackout you'd like to share?

 

[jim584672]

I was down town NYC in the financial district in the late afternoon. My company refused to let us back in so we could wait it out. Ended up walking up to Penn Station. Penn locked us out. Sat on the street until 5am and eventually buses came to get us back to LI. All the time I was thinking when do the riots begin, very scary.

 

[NYEXPAT]

Must have happened just after I moved to Peru, never heard about it!

 

[MichaelB]

I remember that blackout. We were living in a NY suburb and some of our children were still at home. When it became clear that the blackout was going to be longer than a few minutes, I walked to the town center (about a mile), got some nice steaks on sale and picked up some veggies. We then fired up the grill, opened a couple bottles of wine, and had a most enjoyable dinner. All my neighbors worked in NYC. We invited the ones at home to join us, but none did.

Lots of homes were without power ‘til the next day or two. We went to bed in the dark and woke up with power restored.

 

[Sue J]

We are just north of Akron, OH and 35 miles south of Cleveland. Our power went off and came right back on. Our city has it's own power company. Even though everything is all connected to the parts that had the blackout our city managed to keep ours on.

Our son had just left work where they lost power and he called to see if we were down. We had no idea the size of the event until he told us to put on the news.

My parents were in the Cleveland suburbs and they were out for quite a while, living on the 5th floor of a condo building. Even after they got power back they had no water for a while after that. That's difficult when you are in your late 70s. I asked them to come to our house where we had A/C and hot showers, etc but they wanted to tough it out at home.

 

[Philliefan33]

We were in the Cleveland airport, having flown from PDX and trying to make a connecting flight home to PHL. With our flight delayed, and it looking like a long wait, I insisted that we get a meal at one of the airport pubs. DH balked at over paying for food, but I insisted. After we ate, an announcement came over the PA system that the airport was closing. I had a “dumb” cell phone, so could make calls but had no internet access. I made a few calls but couldn’t find a hotel room or rental car. About half an hour after the announcement, firefighters started sweeping us out of the terminal and the PA announcement was asking everyone to go home.

Kind of hard to “go home” to Philly with no flights or cars. When we got moved down to the baggage claim area and were told to leave, I finally pushed back a little. I asked the firefighter if he really wanted us to go outside and sit on the sidewalk all night. We would love to “go home”, but we were a state away. It was as if a light bulb went on in his brain and he scurried to talk with a supervisor. Someone in charge finally decided to allow us to stay in the airport and we settled in on the hard plastic chairs. My DDs ended up sleeping on the platform in the middle of the baggage carousel.

At about 5 am a rep from the airline came by with bottled water and a large box of Cheerios. There were a couple of dozen people in the area, and we were all very orderly, allowing the few seniors in wheel chairs to get served before lining up to get a bottle of water and a plastic cup full of Cheerios.

We’ve made a trip to OR every year to visit family, but that’s the flight experience with the most memories.

 

[Gumby]

I was in my office in Midtown Manhattan. I knew that if I left the building, I would be unable to get back in, so I spent the night there. I had a battery operated radio. When I heard about noon the next day that they had reestablished limited service out of Grand Central, I walked downstairs and caught the train back to Connecticut. That incident also taught me to always keep $100 in cash in my desk drawer, as I had none on me at the time and no way to get more, and you couldn't use a credit card.
The guy who lives across the street from me spent the night sleeping in Bryant Square Park.

 

[W2R]

I was probably here in New Orleans (definitely not in the NE), but I remember hearing about it! My heart sure went out to all the northeasterners as I tried to imagine how awful it would be to be stuck in a high rise in the dark like Gumby and others have described.

It must have been especially frightening to some, less than two years after they went through the 9/11 disaster.

I also remember the blackout/brownout of 1965, from which I learned what the word "brownout" was.

 

[scrabbler1]

I was down town NYC in the financial district in the late afternoon. My company refused to let us back in so we could wait it out. Ended up walking up to Penn Station. Penn locked us out. Sat on the street until 5am and eventually buses came to get us back to LI. All the time I was thinking when do the riots begin, very scary.

Some of LI-based coworkers had a tough time getting home, too. My office was in Jersey City, NJ, so they had to cross the Hudson River first before trying to find a bus or a cab to get back to LI. Ferry service might have been running, I am not sure.

My only obstacle was finding a butane lighter I could use to light my two candles. A nearby mini-mart was open, accepting cash only for purchases. They had lighters so I bought one and was able to light the candles after it got dark around 8 PM. I ate some cold cereal for dinner and went to sleep. Luckily, I had had the A/C on for a few hours before the power went out, so my apartment remained fairly cool the whole time. At 11 PM, the power returned so I was up and running again. Others I knew on LI weren't so lucky and had lost power well into Friday (the next day) and even into Saturday.

 

[dirt_dobber]

Cash is king in a blackout like that. I think so much has changed in just those 15 years in regard to how much money people carry on themselves nowadays. I know several people that carry less than $5 on them. I usually carry around $100 and have some also stashed around the house.

 

[Offgrid Organic Farmer]

We were living in Norwich Connecticut. A century before, the town had bought a pier with huge petroleum tanks, and they started a city-owned NG company. There had also been an electric company next to the same pier, that went out of business. So the city also bought that. Now it is a city-owned electric company. When the grid went down in 2003, they simply disconnected from the grid and the power inside Norwich city limits was not affected.

 

[SteveNU]

We had just pulled into a campground in central Connecticut and turned on the AC when I noticed it the power take a dip and the AC cutout for a minute. It wasn't until later that evening that I saw on the news about the blackout.

Funny thing is that I worked for the utility in transmission operations, the guys who oversee the HV transmission system in the state and they had called everyone in to help get things back on line. Luckily I had had a few adult beverages and didn't end up going in until the next afternoon when we were still putting things back together and fixing what got damaged.

I still believe that my former co-workers at the Millstone nuclear station were instrumental in stopping the blackout from spreading further into New England by keeping the plants on line. So much generation tripped off and if we had lost those big nuclear plants the blackout probably would have continued to cascade into New England further. They took quite a ride but we're able to get things stable and keep the plant on line!

 

[MarieIG]

Was in the office on Long Island, so did not have to bother with trains, subways or bridges. Got out of work early and drove home. DH did make it home from the City; although I don't remember how. He always seems to make it home somehow. Hurricane Sandy was our worst/ longest power loss.

 

[Gumby]

One remarkable thing I recall during my night in the office is that, for the first and likely last time ever in Manhattan, I could see stars in the sky.

 

[imoldernu]

Only takeaway from that blackout is the generator that I bought the day after... just in case. Sits in the garage... unopened.

Only memories of a major blackout came for Nov.9, 1965, living on Cape Cod... 12 hours of mass confusion.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Northeast_blackout_of_1965

The northeast blackout of 1965 was a significant disruption in the supply of electricity on Tuesday, November 9, 1965, affecting parts of Ontario in Canada and Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Vermont in the United States. Over 30 million people and 80,000 square miles (207,000 km2) were left without electricity for up to 13 hours.

 

[6miths]

Was cottaging on the Bruce Peninsula and wasn't really impacted although the power was out. We had been out for the day and didn't realize it was out for quite awhile. Weather was nice but not too hot and days were still long. Fired up the BBQ and had a campfire. SOP.

 

[DrRoy]

I lived in the blackout area but was on vacation outside it. My first clue was when I tried to call my message machine at home but could not connect.

 

[Ronstar]

Don’t remember the blackout - I was at work out of blackout range on my 48th birthday.

 

[scrabbler1]

I lived in the blackout area but was on vacation outside it. My first clue was when I tried to call my message machine at home but could not connect.

Calling my answering machine was how I knew the power was back after Hurricane Sandy. The outgoing message had been erased, but when it picked up the call from my nearby ladyfriend's place, I knew the power was back. While the power was out, but land line phone service was still working in my powerless apartment, the phone would ring without being answered.