August 16 [Saturday]......Blackout 2003 - What Really Happened...
So I will try to give a bit of a breakdown to what has transpired over the last 40 hours here in New York.
THURSDAY
The blackout occurred around 4pm on Thursday afternoon. As it turned out, it affected not only New York but sections of the North Eastern US corridor including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and some areas in Canada.
The power went out and I was on the 16th floor at work. Elevators and lights all went and our superb security people proceeded to make absolutely no announcement over the next hour. They couldn't make a decision to evacuate the building or not. Meanwhile we can see plooms of dark black smoke coming out of somewhere in Manhattan. I later heard that was from a power station around 8th Street.
Amid sketchy reports of the subway system being out, people started down the stairs to get out the building and walk, well, somewhere in the direction of home. I had my plan, I knew it might take a while but I could walk back to the apartment. Buses from Brooklyn either were jammed in traffic, weren't coming or were already packed with people. So along with thousands of others, I started to walk back over the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan. This seemed to be quite a popular place to be, the streets were filled with people and then inexplicably the NYPD closed off the walkway to anyone else, amid fears that there was too much weight on the bridge walkway. Oh great! Well, we turned around and did a u-turn back onto the road over the bridge. Still, thousands of people but now amongst the cars and traffic on the bridge. That was an exciting 40 or so minutes until we cleared the other side eventually back in Manhattan. There seemed to be 4 times more people leaving Manhattan than entering and I must have seen 100,000 on that crossing alone. I heard over and over from people that it was very reminiscent of how it was on Sept 11.
The next stage home I pretty much walked straight up Broadway. Now what I haven't said is that today was goddamn hot and humid. It was in the 90's and you could see the sweat on everyone. Traffic was chaos everywhere, people were half on the road as the sheer amount of people often was too much for the sidewalks. One NYPD car passed by with a loudspeaker announcing for people to remain calm. Eventually I made it back to the apartment building, some 2 and a half hours later. With no power, there was also no elevators. I had 17 floors to climb. Oh, and the stairwell was pitch black. A couple of floors up, I opened my Clie and used the small glow from the screen so I could see where the stairs were.
Once in the apartment I had a rest, but in that heat, 17 floors up it gets hot and with no aircon it wasn't nice. Checking out our fridge, there were 2 cans of cold drink and then Anh gave one to a neighbor who stopped by.
Back outside, traffic had gotten chaotic with no traffic lights working, and the whole walk from Brooklyn, I barely saw any NYPD at all. Yet a strange thing had started happening. People had just gone out and started directing traffic themselves. From our window I looked up 6th Avenue, and sure enough at every intersection I could see someone in a tshirt and shorts standing in the middle of the road directing traffic and stopping it to let people walk across safely. It was quite remakable. As it got dark many had stayed out there and some had glow sticks to wave traffic with.
Not wanting to stay indoors without the internet or tv (oh yeah and light) or even a radio to hear what was happening I decided the best thing to do was walk to Times Square cos how many times will anyone be able to see Times Square with no lights, billboards lit or giant news tickers 4 stories high? This was not to be missed. Of course it meant a couple of 17 floor hikes on a dark stairwell.
It was quite a sureal experience seeing New York with no lights, walking between buildings of just big dark concrete masses. Plenty of people were still around, many with no way of getting home to more distant places (some of which ended up sleeping in the streets or their building reception areas). Shops had all closed long ago, the only thing to eat was soft serve at the Mr Softee vans and they did tremendous business. Times Square was flowing with people no better place to go. Many tourists with cancelled theatre shows, others just there like us. I took up a new habit of going up to the news crews (there were plenty all around) and filming the reporter doing their story while standing right next to the actual news channel cameraman. I filmed an Italian and possibly Korean reporter also. The Korean one was so funny as they went at a frantic pace and kept moving the camera around to us before rushing off down the street, still filming, for no apparent reason. The best thing I saw was the quick witted guys who had turned their "I love NY" tshirts that are the tourist staple into a "Blackout 2003" inscribed shirt.
An hour later we headed home, grabbed a soft serve and walked back in the darkness and somewhat more deserted streets.
FRIDAY
No communication with the outside world this morning so have no idea what is happening. Power still out, no lights or aircon, no internet, no telephone and lucky us, now no running water (water towers on the top of every building only have a supply of half a day or thereabouts). Food in fridge all off by now and there's not much else around. No radio to hear any news but I assume subway all still down. Streets look very quiet for a Friday from our window. Anh was still going to work, she can walk there and they have backup power. I walked with her down 6th Avenue. It's so weird having to walk over 10 blocks before seeing a deli open to get some coffee at. I also had a plain bagel, which to this point as I write this Saturday afternoon, remains the only solid food I have eaten in the last 48 hours. I just don't trust businesses selling food when the power came back up as they had no time for fresh supplies so you know it could have been sitting there the whole time. I'd rather be hungry than get food poisoning Besides, you can't trust NY deli food on the best of times! You know that when all McDonald's and Starbucks are still closed, it means that there is no fresh food just yet - they don't want to be sued.
Back to the day, I sat on the side of the street down around 17th Street with a hot drink and bagel. People will stop and ask where you got the drink from, it was that bad. Then spent the day lazying about trying not to get too hot. It's quite funny as you look out the window at the apartment building across the street and can count the number of people also just standing at the window looking out, cos no-one has anything to do. Every street corner is now manned by a police cadet who is directing traffic.
By late afternoon we can see out the window there is power up around 34th Street, so it seemed like a good idea to walk up there and sit in a movie theatre. Things seemed back to normal around Times Square, I guess if you consider Times Square normal. Later that night the power was back on at our building, thankfully we didn't have to do another 17 flight climb.
So after all the drama, the biggest blackout since 1977 came to an end. It might have only been 30 hours or so for us but it seemed like an eternity as you couldn't hear anything of what was going on, no way of getting any food, or even money if it had lasted for longer. All that and being 17 floors up and a climb in a darkened stairwall before even being able to see anyone else. On the otherhand, it was probably the most friendly I have seen New Yorkers yet.
