It was about 4.15 when the lights went out for the first time on Thursday, August 14, 2003. They seem to take a little while to actually go out. They came back on for a fraction and then went back out again. We were asked to pull out plugs out of the sockets. This would prevent the computers and other hardware when the power would come back up in a while. Or so we thought.
Power outages are almost unheard of in New York. Even after 9/11 power seemed to be available in almost all downtown establishments. Our building is not so fortunate though and our floor even worse. The lines often get overloaded and the fuse blows up. We have lost some hardware due to this in the past since we moved into this building a year and a half ago.
The power does come back up quickly enough. It is too much of a waste of time to let it lie low. This time it seemed harder though. There was also the knowledge trickling in that we were not the only ones.
*
It was about 5pm now. Frank’s had powered radio soon informed us that the outage was far more widespread that we could possibly have imagined. It said Canada was also affected. Mayor Bloomberg was telling us that this was the time to be calm and responsible citizens of this great but tortured metropolis. It was time was us to try to get home. He also told us that the trains were not working. People were stuck underground in the subways, the lifeblood of the city, and in other train services like LIRR, Metro-North and PATH. He said many would have to get home as they have done earlier – on the foot.
Everyone in the office was busy trying to contact their friends and family via cell phones. Landline phones were not working in our office because of the EPBX system was down. The cell phones did not seem to work either. You could calls to far away places but not to nearby places. Same sort of thing that happened after 9/11. The cell phone networks seem to get overloaded too fast. Everyone kept trying anyone. There wasn’t much else to do. We are on the 12th floor. Not many wanted to run down the stairs in pitch dark.
*
“We need volunteers to get us some food and water from the local shops on the street. Please note that what it means is going down 12 flights of stairs in almost complete darkness, buying food and water and then hauling it up the same 12 flight of stairs.”
So, I in a group of 6 or 7 people decided to do it. We collected money – about $200. So, we starting going down the stairs. It was completely dark. It is illegal to not have emergency battery powered lights in the staircase but how does one figure out unless the power is lost? Walking down the stair was difficult. We never knew where the last step was and it always made us feel weird. Then we all took out our cell phones and pointed them to the ground. Surprisingly enough, it was quite a lot of light in the empty pit for us to find our way.
*
It was 91 degrees and humid. People were on the streets drinking water and fanning themselves. People were also in ground trying to find out the best way to get home. Street vendors had escalated their prices. Water bottles that sell for a dollar and fifty cents were already selling and selling well for 3 dollars.
We made our way to the general store. We had our orders on what to get. 4-gallon cans of water, cold cuts of meat, peanut butter and jelly, mayonnaise, mustard, and lots of bread and potato chips and corn chips. As we stuffed food in large bags and moved towards a long line, I figured it was worthwhile trying to call my friend Ravindra in Kansas City in the mid west about a 1500 miles west of New York City. After repeated attempts, the line actually went through. I asked him to call my wife, who works in New Jersey, to go home instead of coming to the City as she was planning on doing earlier. We were going to an Indigo Girls (a rock band) concert in the Central Park in New York City. I figured the concert was probably cancelled by now.
The electronic cashier machine was not working and the bar code scanner was not working. None of the bags of food had any price written on them. The Chinese storeowner was having a difficult time calculating the price of all the things we had bought. I saw that beyond a point he just estimated the price and moved on. He took a while to calculate. The line behind us was going longer. A couple of guys outside the store wanted two bottles of water and were wondering whether they should go back to the end of the line for it or simply pick the bottles and walk away. Someone shouted – just walk away who will know. Another guy said this was the time to be civil.
The bill was about 145 dollars. We all got ready to haul the bags up. The ride up was interesting. One is almost never in the habit of climbing up 12 flights of stairs. Add to that the darkness and the bags of food and it makes for an uphill task (no pun intended).
*
It was 6’o clock already. Food seemed to be the right thing to do to everyone. All the office workers decided to have a little picnic in the large conference room. Sandwiches, chips, soda and water. Seemed pretty good to all.
I communicated to my wife via my friend in Kansas City and I got to know that she is home. There was no power however.
We had our annual summer meeting the next day and hence all the employees form California, New Mexico and Chicago were in the office. All these folks really had no place to go except their hotels, which had no power so.
Others who live mostly in New Jersey had left earlier by bus. City buses were still running. However, there were no traffic lights and hence huge traffic jams. There are always traffic jams in New York City but none without the luxury of traffic lights.
*
I come to the office via a train that runs under the Hudson River. The train station is near my apartment complex and the train drops me on the 30th Street and 6th Avenue in New York. My office is about a 5-minute walk from there. I sometimes come to the office by ferry in the morning. There is a ferry terminal right in my apartment complex. The ferry takes me to 38th street and 12 Avenue in New York. A bus service for the ferry takes me from there to my office on Park Avenue and 28th Street. I thought with trains not running and the traffic jams the best way to get home would be to take a ferry that would drop me right outside my apartment complex in Newport.
When I reached the ferry terminal, I realized that apparently 20 thousand other people also got the same idea.
I decided to leave the office at 6.30 pm. The streets of New York were filled with people. Enormous number of people. People in numbers far greater than every other day. Street vendors were looking happy. Everyone else was confused and trying hard to get somewhere. There seemed no vehicular traffic in the city other than near the tunnels and bridges taking people out of the city.
The train station known as the Penn Station from where thousands of people take trains that go to New Jersey and Long Island was crowded with thousands of people resting and waiting on the sidewalks. There were similar groups by the subway stations as well.
What was amazing is that you feel New York City already has too many people and suddenly you see many times more.
*
I reached the ferry terminal around 7 pm. It was quite a site. The ferry terminal on the center was being pursued by two lines – they were actually hoards of people – from two directions. Literally thousands of people. There were no formal lines – just a huge wall of people. I gave myself about and an hour or hour and a half before I get to board the ferry.
People were generally patient. Angry, very hot and humid but also bearing it. Every fifteen minutes or so, the wall of people will move a little ahead. Several people would cut across in a bid to get ahead.
After about an hour into this people were getting a bit impatient. A woman here and a woman there would faint. Occasionally, the police would take a pregnant woman ahead of the line and some other woman clearly not pregnant would follow as well. People would laugh, shout, and carry on. People frantically calling on cell phones and cell phones not working at all. An old man next to me told me to try to call his wife on my cell phone. He hadn’t communicated to her at all. She was new in this country and would worry to death. I tried but I couldn’t get through.
As darkness started to come over it became a bit cooler. People were resigning to the fact that this exercise was going to take longer than any one had expected. It was 9 pm already. Some said they had been standing since 5.30. Others like me who were cutting the lines a bit were a little luckier. Police and ambulances regularly picked people who were losing it. The police officer, most looked like young kids anyway, would usually smile and say they do not know anything when asked about how long it would take and where the ferries were going. The deal was that there are several ferry terminals on the cost of New Jersey across the river from Manhattan. There terminals were usually 2 to 3 miles apart. People were anxious to make the right terminal. Nobody knew how they would get home if the went to the wrong terminal. Who knew whether buses were working or not? And the traffic jams would probably make it hours before they reached home anyway.
*
I was able to board the train at about 10 pm. It was a big boat. A cruise liner. About 500 people could sit in it. The only problem was that it was going to go to Weehawken and not Newport. Apparently, all ferries leaving 38th street were going to Weehawken, about 5 miles walk up the hill from Newport. The operators explained to us that there would be buses waiting for us on the other side to take us to Hoboken and Newport, two towns to the south of Weehawken.
It was one the most beautiful boat rides ever. A pale moon hovered eerily over a completely dark Manhattan. Manhattan – the city that prides itself over its luxury of lights in the night. The most famous skyline in the world was completely dark. The big buildings looked were tall silhouettes instead of the glimmering pillars of light. The moon was beautiful.
*
The boat ride was just about 10 minutes. There was another story waiting for us on the other side. There were no buses. At least none to be seen coming or going. Another mass of people. Another confusion and another piece of frustration. It was almost pitch dark. Very few emergency lights. Nobody really knew what to do. It felt like we were refugees right out of a world war movie.
Most of the people decided to walk the remaining miles to their home. It was a long tough walk after a long tough day. The streets were jam packed with traffic. People had come over to pick their friends and family members. However, nobody could contact anybody as the cell phones were not working. So, people in the cards drove slowly – constantly looking out the window to find a familiar face. The familiar faces were too busy walking too fast to get to their homes. It was a strange strange evening. It was about 11 pm now.
*
When I reached my apartment, the first thing I did was talk a hot shower. Yes, fortunately the lights were back up in Newport.
*
It was a different story for the city though. Most people slept on the sidewalks because of the heat trapped in the hotels. Most hotels did not have generators. Some did to run the elevators and the emergency lights but that was about it. The power came back to Manhattan slowly over the next few days. It was restored completely on Sunday, the 16th of August.
*
There was very little looting and violence this blackout. The last major blackout in New York City was in 1977 and apparently, millions of dollars worth of goods were stolen in a blackout that lasted only a fraction of the current blackout. So, I guess there was some silver lining amidst the darkness. Or maybe it was just the police who swarmed every major street corner and every major intersection and every major landmark fearing the worst – a terrorist attack.
*
Power outages are almost unheard of in New York. Even after 9/11 power seemed to be available in almost all downtown establishments. Our building is not so fortunate though and our floor even worse. The lines often get overloaded and the fuse blows up. We have lost some hardware due to this in the past since we moved into this building a year and a half ago.
The power does come back up quickly enough. It is too much of a waste of time to let it lie low. This time it seemed harder though. There was also the knowledge trickling in that we were not the only ones.
*
It was about 5pm now. Frank’s had powered radio soon informed us that the outage was far more widespread that we could possibly have imagined. It said Canada was also affected. Mayor Bloomberg was telling us that this was the time to be calm and responsible citizens of this great but tortured metropolis. It was time was us to try to get home. He also told us that the trains were not working. People were stuck underground in the subways, the lifeblood of the city, and in other train services like LIRR, Metro-North and PATH. He said many would have to get home as they have done earlier – on the foot.
Everyone in the office was busy trying to contact their friends and family via cell phones. Landline phones were not working in our office because of the EPBX system was down. The cell phones did not seem to work either. You could calls to far away places but not to nearby places. Same sort of thing that happened after 9/11. The cell phone networks seem to get overloaded too fast. Everyone kept trying anyone. There wasn’t much else to do. We are on the 12th floor. Not many wanted to run down the stairs in pitch dark.
*
“We need volunteers to get us some food and water from the local shops on the street. Please note that what it means is going down 12 flights of stairs in almost complete darkness, buying food and water and then hauling it up the same 12 flight of stairs.”
So, I in a group of 6 or 7 people decided to do it. We collected money – about $200. So, we starting going down the stairs. It was completely dark. It is illegal to not have emergency battery powered lights in the staircase but how does one figure out unless the power is lost? Walking down the stair was difficult. We never knew where the last step was and it always made us feel weird. Then we all took out our cell phones and pointed them to the ground. Surprisingly enough, it was quite a lot of light in the empty pit for us to find our way.
*
It was 91 degrees and humid. People were on the streets drinking water and fanning themselves. People were also in ground trying to find out the best way to get home. Street vendors had escalated their prices. Water bottles that sell for a dollar and fifty cents were already selling and selling well for 3 dollars.
We made our way to the general store. We had our orders on what to get. 4-gallon cans of water, cold cuts of meat, peanut butter and jelly, mayonnaise, mustard, and lots of bread and potato chips and corn chips. As we stuffed food in large bags and moved towards a long line, I figured it was worthwhile trying to call my friend Ravindra in Kansas City in the mid west about a 1500 miles west of New York City. After repeated attempts, the line actually went through. I asked him to call my wife, who works in New Jersey, to go home instead of coming to the City as she was planning on doing earlier. We were going to an Indigo Girls (a rock band) concert in the Central Park in New York City. I figured the concert was probably cancelled by now.
The electronic cashier machine was not working and the bar code scanner was not working. None of the bags of food had any price written on them. The Chinese storeowner was having a difficult time calculating the price of all the things we had bought. I saw that beyond a point he just estimated the price and moved on. He took a while to calculate. The line behind us was going longer. A couple of guys outside the store wanted two bottles of water and were wondering whether they should go back to the end of the line for it or simply pick the bottles and walk away. Someone shouted – just walk away who will know. Another guy said this was the time to be civil.
The bill was about 145 dollars. We all got ready to haul the bags up. The ride up was interesting. One is almost never in the habit of climbing up 12 flights of stairs. Add to that the darkness and the bags of food and it makes for an uphill task (no pun intended).
*
It was 6’o clock already. Food seemed to be the right thing to do to everyone. All the office workers decided to have a little picnic in the large conference room. Sandwiches, chips, soda and water. Seemed pretty good to all.
I communicated to my wife via my friend in Kansas City and I got to know that she is home. There was no power however.
We had our annual summer meeting the next day and hence all the employees form California, New Mexico and Chicago were in the office. All these folks really had no place to go except their hotels, which had no power so.
Others who live mostly in New Jersey had left earlier by bus. City buses were still running. However, there were no traffic lights and hence huge traffic jams. There are always traffic jams in New York City but none without the luxury of traffic lights.
*
I come to the office via a train that runs under the Hudson River. The train station is near my apartment complex and the train drops me on the 30th Street and 6th Avenue in New York. My office is about a 5-minute walk from there. I sometimes come to the office by ferry in the morning. There is a ferry terminal right in my apartment complex. The ferry takes me to 38th street and 12 Avenue in New York. A bus service for the ferry takes me from there to my office on Park Avenue and 28th Street. I thought with trains not running and the traffic jams the best way to get home would be to take a ferry that would drop me right outside my apartment complex in Newport.
When I reached the ferry terminal, I realized that apparently 20 thousand other people also got the same idea.
I decided to leave the office at 6.30 pm. The streets of New York were filled with people. Enormous number of people. People in numbers far greater than every other day. Street vendors were looking happy. Everyone else was confused and trying hard to get somewhere. There seemed no vehicular traffic in the city other than near the tunnels and bridges taking people out of the city.
The train station known as the Penn Station from where thousands of people take trains that go to New Jersey and Long Island was crowded with thousands of people resting and waiting on the sidewalks. There were similar groups by the subway stations as well.
What was amazing is that you feel New York City already has too many people and suddenly you see many times more.
*
I reached the ferry terminal around 7 pm. It was quite a site. The ferry terminal on the center was being pursued by two lines – they were actually hoards of people – from two directions. Literally thousands of people. There were no formal lines – just a huge wall of people. I gave myself about and an hour or hour and a half before I get to board the ferry.
People were generally patient. Angry, very hot and humid but also bearing it. Every fifteen minutes or so, the wall of people will move a little ahead. Several people would cut across in a bid to get ahead.
After about an hour into this people were getting a bit impatient. A woman here and a woman there would faint. Occasionally, the police would take a pregnant woman ahead of the line and some other woman clearly not pregnant would follow as well. People would laugh, shout, and carry on. People frantically calling on cell phones and cell phones not working at all. An old man next to me told me to try to call his wife on my cell phone. He hadn’t communicated to her at all. She was new in this country and would worry to death. I tried but I couldn’t get through.
As darkness started to come over it became a bit cooler. People were resigning to the fact that this exercise was going to take longer than any one had expected. It was 9 pm already. Some said they had been standing since 5.30. Others like me who were cutting the lines a bit were a little luckier. Police and ambulances regularly picked people who were losing it. The police officer, most looked like young kids anyway, would usually smile and say they do not know anything when asked about how long it would take and where the ferries were going. The deal was that there are several ferry terminals on the cost of New Jersey across the river from Manhattan. There terminals were usually 2 to 3 miles apart. People were anxious to make the right terminal. Nobody knew how they would get home if the went to the wrong terminal. Who knew whether buses were working or not? And the traffic jams would probably make it hours before they reached home anyway.
*
I was able to board the train at about 10 pm. It was a big boat. A cruise liner. About 500 people could sit in it. The only problem was that it was going to go to Weehawken and not Newport. Apparently, all ferries leaving 38th street were going to Weehawken, about 5 miles walk up the hill from Newport. The operators explained to us that there would be buses waiting for us on the other side to take us to Hoboken and Newport, two towns to the south of Weehawken.
It was one the most beautiful boat rides ever. A pale moon hovered eerily over a completely dark Manhattan. Manhattan – the city that prides itself over its luxury of lights in the night. The most famous skyline in the world was completely dark. The big buildings looked were tall silhouettes instead of the glimmering pillars of light. The moon was beautiful.
*
The boat ride was just about 10 minutes. There was another story waiting for us on the other side. There were no buses. At least none to be seen coming or going. Another mass of people. Another confusion and another piece of frustration. It was almost pitch dark. Very few emergency lights. Nobody really knew what to do. It felt like we were refugees right out of a world war movie.
Most of the people decided to walk the remaining miles to their home. It was a long tough walk after a long tough day. The streets were jam packed with traffic. People had come over to pick their friends and family members. However, nobody could contact anybody as the cell phones were not working. So, people in the cards drove slowly – constantly looking out the window to find a familiar face. The familiar faces were too busy walking too fast to get to their homes. It was a strange strange evening. It was about 11 pm now.
*
When I reached my apartment, the first thing I did was talk a hot shower. Yes, fortunately the lights were back up in Newport.
*
It was a different story for the city though. Most people slept on the sidewalks because of the heat trapped in the hotels. Most hotels did not have generators. Some did to run the elevators and the emergency lights but that was about it. The power came back to Manhattan slowly over the next few days. It was restored completely on Sunday, the 16th of August.
*
There was very little looting and violence this blackout. The last major blackout in New York City was in 1977 and apparently, millions of dollars worth of goods were stolen in a blackout that lasted only a fraction of the current blackout. So, I guess there was some silver lining amidst the darkness. Or maybe it was just the police who swarmed every major street corner and every major intersection and every major landmark fearing the worst – a terrorist attack.
*