"Yo man, how's your blackout?!"
August 15, 2016 8:39 AM Subscribe
"As New York City continues to wilt its way through a stifling heat wave, it's appropriate to remember that things could be worse: 13 years ago [yesterday], a massive 30-hour blackout began, thanks to an overgrown tree branch in Cleveland."
Blackout MeFi post
Blackout MeFi post
Things could be worse? Er, well...
posted by thomas j wise at 8:56 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by thomas j wise at 8:56 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
What Will You Do When The Lights Go Out? The Inevitable Failure Of The US Grid
posted by robbyrobs at 9:00 AM on August 15, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by robbyrobs at 9:00 AM on August 15, 2016 [3 favorites]
Such a grand old time, for me at least. There was the Milky Way above my downtown, the pizza place was still going with its gas ovens, and the good folks at the brewpub were still pulling pints by hand. Everyone was out on the streets, away from their stifling apartments, just enjoying themselves and this mandatory pause.
Others had a great time, too -- Stratford, Ont. made the blackout into a yearly thing, and they kept up a downtown blackout for at least a little while. (Not everyone participated, which probably didn't help, especially in tourist high season.)
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:04 AM on August 15, 2016 [4 favorites]
Others had a great time, too -- Stratford, Ont. made the blackout into a yearly thing, and they kept up a downtown blackout for at least a little while. (Not everyone participated, which probably didn't help, especially in tourist high season.)
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:04 AM on August 15, 2016 [4 favorites]
I was staying at a relative's cottage at the time, so the lack of power wasn't all that noticeable...I was wishing I was in my backyard in Toronto, looking up at those stars.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:07 AM on August 15, 2016
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:07 AM on August 15, 2016
We were on our honeymoon in Toronto when the blackout happened. People say "Oh, that sounds so romantic" until we point out that it was August and we were in an 18th floor hotel room without working air-conditioning or shower.
posted by octothorpe at 9:09 AM on August 15, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 9:09 AM on August 15, 2016 [5 favorites]
And, lo, the Lord decreed that New Yorkers should thenceforth never shut the fuck up about it.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:27 AM on August 15, 2016 [24 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 9:27 AM on August 15, 2016 [24 favorites]
I was thirteen at the time and my best friend, whose house I was staying in at the time, had literally just bought a brand-new Playstation 2.
It was the worst.
posted by Itaxpica at 9:31 AM on August 15, 2016 [22 favorites]
It was the worst.
posted by Itaxpica at 9:31 AM on August 15, 2016 [22 favorites]
Setting the stage for the literary classic, A Tree Grows in Cleveland.
(Double checking to make sure that this was a joke untainted by fact, I discovered the Hitler trees of Cleveland. History beats fiction again!)
posted by BWA at 9:37 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
(Double checking to make sure that this was a joke untainted by fact, I discovered the Hitler trees of Cleveland. History beats fiction again!)
posted by BWA at 9:37 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
I was a college student without direction back then. I remember playing Madden 2004 on my PS2 and I was frustrated that the power went out, so I went to take a nap. A few hours later I found out that the whole northeast was blacked out.
I also slept through 9/11. I used to sleep through a lot of major things in life, figuratively and literally.
posted by 81818181818181818181 at 9:42 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
I also slept through 9/11. I used to sleep through a lot of major things in life, figuratively and literally.
posted by 81818181818181818181 at 9:42 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
I was on the right side of the Ottawa river, behind back-to-back a.c.-d.c. converters; we didn't lose power.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:43 AM on August 15, 2016
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:43 AM on August 15, 2016
It's interesting to see that blackout thread happen without cellphones. The comment about connecting to dial-up slayed me.
posted by codacorolla at 9:45 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by codacorolla at 9:45 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
I think part of the reason why the blackout felt so special was it was not too long after September 11, and the previous blackout, in '77, was the stuff of urban disaster legend. So when New Yorkers pulled together as friendly buddies again, it meant something. And also we like talking about ourselves a lot. That too.
posted by dame at 9:47 AM on August 15, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by dame at 9:47 AM on August 15, 2016 [11 favorites]
Was watching Late Night with Conan O'Brien. They had enough emergency power to do a show intro, but not enough to warrant doing a full show. I remember they looked at aerial footage of lines to get on ferries and to use some of the remaining payphones. Looking at Wikipedia, apparently the planned musical guests, the Dandy Warhols, commandeered the green room and stayed the night.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:49 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:49 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
And there were many other performers caught off guard by the blackout.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:53 AM on August 15, 2016
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:53 AM on August 15, 2016
I was visiting my then-girlfriend out in Ann Arbor, which was right on the edge of the blackout, when it happened. I remember noticing one intersection out of lights, then the next, and by the third I had the radio on to learn what was happening.
What I remember most about it was how, every ten seconds or so, the news announcer would take pains to say that there was no evidence that this was terrorism of any sort. We joke that it would go down in history as "Not-Terrorism 2013."
This was right on the cusp of cell phones (I'd had my first one for under a month at that point.) and there was so much we didn't know. I remember buying what supplies we could from a little country store/gas station and paying exact change. I remember the cashier figuring tax and keeping a sales ledger in pencil on a little pad.
Then we drove to (I want to say Dexter, MI) where we did have power and light and could take a shower. Her roommate had a crank radio and we sat together most of the night, quietly wondering what had happened and how long before the lights came back on.
posted by gauche at 10:01 AM on August 15, 2016
What I remember most about it was how, every ten seconds or so, the news announcer would take pains to say that there was no evidence that this was terrorism of any sort. We joke that it would go down in history as "Not-Terrorism 2013."
This was right on the cusp of cell phones (I'd had my first one for under a month at that point.) and there was so much we didn't know. I remember buying what supplies we could from a little country store/gas station and paying exact change. I remember the cashier figuring tax and keeping a sales ledger in pencil on a little pad.
Then we drove to (I want to say Dexter, MI) where we did have power and light and could take a shower. Her roommate had a crank radio and we sat together most of the night, quietly wondering what had happened and how long before the lights came back on.
posted by gauche at 10:01 AM on August 15, 2016
The blackout didn't reach Boston, but I remember my then-boss and I spending the whole afternoon just waiting for it to happen, getting all our emergency shutdown stuff in order...and then nothing....
posted by briank at 10:02 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by briank at 10:02 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
I already lived in Rhode Island then, and our backwards ways meant that we basically had our own electrical grid so we were spared. Finally, a perk for living here!
posted by wenestvedt at 10:03 AM on August 15, 2016
posted by wenestvedt at 10:03 AM on August 15, 2016
I was watching a DVD and was annoyed that I had blown a fuse. Wait, the entire apartment is out. Wait, the entire building is out. Wait, the entire block is out. Wait, the entire neighbourhood is out. Wait, the entire city is out. My internal map of how big it was kept expanding until finally I called friends on the west coast to see if they could turn on CNN or something to see how big it was.
A couple of friends were supposed to be coming over that evening for video game carnage. All but one cancelled, so he and I ended up playing chess by the light of an oil lamp.
For me the only real inconvenience was that the power took two days to come back on, and the DVD in the machine was rented and due back the next day.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:05 AM on August 15, 2016 [3 favorites]
A couple of friends were supposed to be coming over that evening for video game carnage. All but one cancelled, so he and I ended up playing chess by the light of an oil lamp.
For me the only real inconvenience was that the power took two days to come back on, and the DVD in the machine was rented and due back the next day.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:05 AM on August 15, 2016 [3 favorites]
The ’03 blackout is one of my favorite New York memories, out of the 24 total years I’ve spent there. (Most of my life, really; I’m only 38.) At 25, I’d just gotten engaged. I was enjoying Friendster. Earlier that summer I’d done a flash mob at Toys R Us with a couple of girlfriends, in which we pretended to worship an animatronic dinosaur. We were drinking a lot of Stella Artois.
It wasn’t the lights going out but the sudden absence of white computer-noise that announced the blackout. Less than two years after 9/11, in lower Manhattan, we were pretty edgy; but there have been several epic summertime blackouts in New York’s living memory, so we weren’t jumping to any conclusions. Over the rooftops, we could see the power station on the East Side billowing smoke, and had a lot of unscientific explanations of what that could mean. We could see that all the stop lights up Hudson were out. We stayed put in the cool office for a couple of hours, and I texted my fiancé for the first time ever (T9 on a Nokia candybar FTW). Eventually one of the senior editors told us she was heading home to Jersey, and she’d parked her SUV in a garage down the street, so I hitched a ride up the West Side with her.
It was becoming clear that there wasn’t anything more frightening than a major blackout afoot, and the streets were full of commuters hoofing it home. Coco helado vendors and water bottle hawkers were getting entrepreneurial, but nobody grudged it. Shawn’s SUV had a big wide back seat, so we grabbed some of the walkers on the way uptown to my home in Harlem. One of the two men was secretly dating the woman (they were all coworkers at a bank) and she was pregnant! They were delighted, and we were the first people they’d told, along with their astonished coworker. We were delighted too. Bring on the new life!
All the city buses were free that weekend, since there were no subways or streetlights, and everyone took advantage; the following evening we got the M60 to the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden where we enjoyed beer in the dark city with some colleagues. The brassy, ballsy cooperation in a crisis is so much of what I miss about living in NYC– partying in the dark and telling secrets to hitchhiking strangers, sharing the peace until the lights come back on.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 10:11 AM on August 15, 2016 [20 favorites]
It wasn’t the lights going out but the sudden absence of white computer-noise that announced the blackout. Less than two years after 9/11, in lower Manhattan, we were pretty edgy; but there have been several epic summertime blackouts in New York’s living memory, so we weren’t jumping to any conclusions. Over the rooftops, we could see the power station on the East Side billowing smoke, and had a lot of unscientific explanations of what that could mean. We could see that all the stop lights up Hudson were out. We stayed put in the cool office for a couple of hours, and I texted my fiancé for the first time ever (T9 on a Nokia candybar FTW). Eventually one of the senior editors told us she was heading home to Jersey, and she’d parked her SUV in a garage down the street, so I hitched a ride up the West Side with her.
It was becoming clear that there wasn’t anything more frightening than a major blackout afoot, and the streets were full of commuters hoofing it home. Coco helado vendors and water bottle hawkers were getting entrepreneurial, but nobody grudged it. Shawn’s SUV had a big wide back seat, so we grabbed some of the walkers on the way uptown to my home in Harlem. One of the two men was secretly dating the woman (they were all coworkers at a bank) and she was pregnant! They were delighted, and we were the first people they’d told, along with their astonished coworker. We were delighted too. Bring on the new life!
All the city buses were free that weekend, since there were no subways or streetlights, and everyone took advantage; the following evening we got the M60 to the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden where we enjoyed beer in the dark city with some colleagues. The brassy, ballsy cooperation in a crisis is so much of what I miss about living in NYC– partying in the dark and telling secrets to hitchhiking strangers, sharing the peace until the lights come back on.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 10:11 AM on August 15, 2016 [20 favorites]
30-hour blackout. Yeah. Let's talk about the nine-day blackout we had in Western Queens back in 2006. Nine days without power. Of course, it was only in Queens, so you know, Mayor Bloomberg didn't need to concern himself much -- why do a bunch of blue-collar workers and immigrants need power?
posted by holborne at 10:14 AM on August 15, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by holborne at 10:14 AM on August 15, 2016 [9 favorites]
13 years ago [yesterday], a massive 30-hour blackout began, thanks to an overgrown tree branch in Cleveland."
Yeah, right -- "an overgrown tree branch in Ohio."
In a 6 week period in 2003:
I think it's probable these were all terrorist attacks.
posted by jamjam at 10:16 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yeah, right -- "an overgrown tree branch in Ohio."
In a 6 week period in 2003:
· August 14 Power went out across much of north-eastern US and parts of Canada, hitting cities such as New York, Detroit, Boston, Cleveland, and Ottawa. There was speculation that the worst blackout in American history was caused by the failure of three power transmission lines in Ohio, but electricity operator FirstEnergy has concluded it was caused by "multiple events"The American invasion of Iraq began on March 20 of the same year, and by an amazing coincidence, the US, Britain, Denmark and Italy we're all part of the "coalition of the willing."
· August 28 A blackout knocked out a fifth of London's power for 30 minutes during the evening rush hour in what the National Grid calls its worst failure in more than a decade. An undersized fuse that lay undetected for two years was blamed
· September 23 A blackout struck southern Sweden and eastern Denmark, crippling industry, airports, trains and bridges and affecting an estimated 5 million people. The blackout was Sweden's worst since 1983
· September 28 A power cut cripples most of Italy. Only the island of Sardinia and small pockets of mainland escape blackout, which authorities have blamed on the breakdown of electricity lines from neighbouring France and Switzerland
I think it's probable these were all terrorist attacks.
posted by jamjam at 10:16 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
(Serious question: are you serious? Hunh, I never thought about it before.)
posted by wenestvedt at 10:23 AM on August 15, 2016
posted by wenestvedt at 10:23 AM on August 15, 2016
Terrorist attacks that, thirteen years later, no individual or group has yet to take credit for? Thus entirely defeating the purpose of terrorist attacks?
Sometimes, things just happen.
posted by Itaxpica at 10:24 AM on August 15, 2016 [11 favorites]
Sometimes, things just happen.
posted by Itaxpica at 10:24 AM on August 15, 2016 [11 favorites]
Besides a black out probably happens on average somewhere in the world every couple of weeks.
posted by Mitheral at 10:26 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Mitheral at 10:26 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
People sure love to blame Cleveland for things. Well here's another perspective: without Cleveland, New York City is lost. Apparently. How do you like them big apples?
In fact there were unplanned outages in Indiana, Dayton, southern Ohio, and, yes, Cleveland that were all precursors to the catastrophic cascade. But I guess that's not funny.
posted by Western Infidels at 10:27 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
In fact there were unplanned outages in Indiana, Dayton, southern Ohio, and, yes, Cleveland that were all precursors to the catastrophic cascade. But I guess that's not funny.
posted by Western Infidels at 10:27 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
And, lo, the Lord decreed that New Yorkers should thenceforth never shut the fuck up about it.
thx for reminding me to step up my Only Make Posts About New York game!
posted by poffin boffin at 10:28 AM on August 15, 2016 [8 favorites]
People sure love to blame Cleveland for things. Well here's another perspective: without Cleveland, New York City is lost.
Is there a signpost on I-80 where one direction points to California and the other direction points to New York? I hate to break it to you but we have GPSes now.
posted by Talez at 10:30 AM on August 15, 2016
Is there a signpost on I-80 where one direction points to California and the other direction points to New York? I hate to break it to you but we have GPSes now.
posted by Talez at 10:30 AM on August 15, 2016
I'm sure this has been posted before, but Bruce Schneier wrote an essay about how he thinks that the 2003 blackout was caused by the Blaster worm.
posted by gauche at 10:31 AM on August 15, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by gauche at 10:31 AM on August 15, 2016 [4 favorites]
I lived in Philly at the time, but my partner lived in NYC, and I remember just being really worried and hoping they'd be able to check in at some point.
They were fine. They walked to the beach with some friends during the night.
posted by SansPoint at 10:32 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
They were fine. They walked to the beach with some friends during the night.
posted by SansPoint at 10:32 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
Besides a black out probably happens on average somewhere in the world every couple of weeks.
Weeks? When I lived in Beirut we used to get blackouts roughly once a day.
But I don't understand the secret terror attack conspiracy theory. The US and Britain were both seeking justification for war. Are you telling me Bush and Blair had a chat about it and decided that they had to keep this gift to their foreign policy agenda a secret for reasons?
posted by howfar at 10:34 AM on August 15, 2016 [3 favorites]
Weeks? When I lived in Beirut we used to get blackouts roughly once a day.
But I don't understand the secret terror attack conspiracy theory. The US and Britain were both seeking justification for war. Are you telling me Bush and Blair had a chat about it and decided that they had to keep this gift to their foreign policy agenda a secret for reasons?
posted by howfar at 10:34 AM on August 15, 2016 [3 favorites]
thanks to an overgrown tree branch in Cleveland.
Not actually a tree branch and not actually in Cleveland, but that's OK, we're used to it.
I was at work working, and of course most of my work went offline with the power. Had fun negotiating all the usual controlled intersections as four-way stops in almost but not quite the middle of rush hour. Ironically, I think I got through all those intersections faster as four-way stops than I did under normal conditions. Traffic engineers, take note.
Since it all started at 4pm in August we had several hours to prepare for no lights, no power. By dusk we had all the candles, flashlights, batteries, etc. we needed together.
But around 7pm I noticed that the water pressure was dropping, and without analysing it too much, started filling every container I could using the remaining pressure. Our ultimate water source is Lake Erie, and it turns out that the massive water pumps that get that water up into the Heights went out of service with the power blackout. (A shocking amount of Cleveland's water infrastructure is well over a hundred years old, but that's another story.)
That was the downside: a couple of days without electricity or water pressure.
The upside: The Milky Way.
I hadn't seen the Milky Way from my own backyard since the 1960s -- before the universal twenty-four hour business day and ubiquitous sodium-vapour lighting of all public spaces. Seeing the Milky Way from the streets of a major North American city -- never.
The Milky Way Show was on all night and it was glorious.
That night sky and the festive atmosphere on our street were the main 'take-aways' of the event for me.
posted by Herodios at 10:37 AM on August 15, 2016 [9 favorites]
Not actually a tree branch and not actually in Cleveland, but that's OK, we're used to it.
I was at work working, and of course most of my work went offline with the power. Had fun negotiating all the usual controlled intersections as four-way stops in almost but not quite the middle of rush hour. Ironically, I think I got through all those intersections faster as four-way stops than I did under normal conditions. Traffic engineers, take note.
Since it all started at 4pm in August we had several hours to prepare for no lights, no power. By dusk we had all the candles, flashlights, batteries, etc. we needed together.
But around 7pm I noticed that the water pressure was dropping, and without analysing it too much, started filling every container I could using the remaining pressure. Our ultimate water source is Lake Erie, and it turns out that the massive water pumps that get that water up into the Heights went out of service with the power blackout. (A shocking amount of Cleveland's water infrastructure is well over a hundred years old, but that's another story.)
That was the downside: a couple of days without electricity or water pressure.
The upside: The Milky Way.
I hadn't seen the Milky Way from my own backyard since the 1960s -- before the universal twenty-four hour business day and ubiquitous sodium-vapour lighting of all public spaces. Seeing the Milky Way from the streets of a major North American city -- never.
The Milky Way Show was on all night and it was glorious.
That night sky and the festive atmosphere on our street were the main 'take-aways' of the event for me.
posted by Herodios at 10:37 AM on August 15, 2016 [9 favorites]
A lack of foresight due in part to privatization (short term profits lead to lack of vegetation control) seems a lot more likely than terrorism or computer worms. I was gloating about Quebec's isolated grid, but a few years later we also had an outage due to reactive energy problems, and they had to install capacitor banks all over the place to prevent a recurrence.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 10:42 AM on August 15, 2016
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 10:42 AM on August 15, 2016
Here is the main Metafilter blackout thread from that day. (The one linked above chronicles the aftermath.)
posted by lisa g at 10:55 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by lisa g at 10:55 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
Here is the main Metafilter blackout thread from that day.
Ah, interesant. I was not a member then, but Faze was (anybody remember Faze?) and he addressed the water issue in his inimitable fashion.
Ah, interesant. I was not a member then, but Faze was (anybody remember Faze?) and he addressed the water issue in his inimitable fashion.
You know the story about there being a spike in births nine months after a blackout? It's not going to happen in Cleveland. The reason: No water. Imagine not being able to wash. Eeeeew.posted by Herodios at 11:02 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
That is less of an impediment than Faze would apparently guess and you can do an amazing amount of washing with a cloth and the water in your toilet tank.
posted by Mitheral at 11:07 AM on August 15, 2016
posted by Mitheral at 11:07 AM on August 15, 2016
For me it started out fairly scary - not that there was anything all THAT scary about it, but I was still jittery from 9/11 and it was fricking WEIRD to walk down thirty flights and come out on the street and realize that it isn't just your building, just your block, that you can see all the way down Fifth Avenue to the park, and the stop lights are off and there are people milling around everywhere and maybe this is it? And Erin (now wife, then girlfriend) was back home in Brooklyn, or wait, didn't she have an appointment in the city in a half hour, so maybe she is in a tunnel under the East River?
At any rate, I bade my friends and coworkers good luck and walked home - 5 or 6 miles. In those days I took a Polaroid every day and my one from THAT day is funny - it was taken walking Queens bound on the Manhattan Bound roadway of the Queensboro bridge in the midst of tens or hundreds of thousands of people, and I'm the only person in it.
I was still feeling pretty tense when I got back to my neighborhood. I bought some Christmas candles from an enterprising fellow at the Brooklyn end of the Pulaski Bridge. Spent the last of my cash on a few bottles of water at my bodega, and when I came out I saw Erin, coming up the street laughing. THEN, the moment I saw her, I was totally relieved, and it got fun. She had had the presence of mind to buy ice and groceries right when it happened, so we were pretty well stocked. We hung out at the bar across the street (the Pencil Factory) and drank the keg beer that was going to get warm and go bad, listened to the news on a tiny dollar store radio, and talked to all the neighbors we'd been walking by for months and years.
posted by dirtdirt at 11:09 AM on August 15, 2016 [3 favorites]
At any rate, I bade my friends and coworkers good luck and walked home - 5 or 6 miles. In those days I took a Polaroid every day and my one from THAT day is funny - it was taken walking Queens bound on the Manhattan Bound roadway of the Queensboro bridge in the midst of tens or hundreds of thousands of people, and I'm the only person in it.
I was still feeling pretty tense when I got back to my neighborhood. I bought some Christmas candles from an enterprising fellow at the Brooklyn end of the Pulaski Bridge. Spent the last of my cash on a few bottles of water at my bodega, and when I came out I saw Erin, coming up the street laughing. THEN, the moment I saw her, I was totally relieved, and it got fun. She had had the presence of mind to buy ice and groceries right when it happened, so we were pretty well stocked. We hung out at the bar across the street (the Pencil Factory) and drank the keg beer that was going to get warm and go bad, listened to the news on a tiny dollar store radio, and talked to all the neighbors we'd been walking by for months and years.
posted by dirtdirt at 11:09 AM on August 15, 2016 [3 favorites]
Faze was not into the funk in any sense of the word.
Meanwhile . . .
posted by Herodios at 11:10 AM on August 15, 2016
The brassy, ballsy cooperation in a crisis is so much of what I miss about living in NYC– partying in the dark and telling secrets to hitchhiking strangers, sharing the peace until the lights come back on.
Whereupon we all pretend we have never spoken and go back to racing one another up subways stairs every morning.
posted by dame at 11:13 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
Whereupon we all pretend we have never spoken and go back to racing one another up subways stairs every morning.
posted by dame at 11:13 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
(I actually love both parts.)
posted by dame at 11:13 AM on August 15, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by dame at 11:13 AM on August 15, 2016 [5 favorites]
how's your blackout?
Well I would have bet money this happened 7 years ago at most, so....
posted by thelonius at 11:15 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
Well I would have bet money this happened 7 years ago at most, so....
posted by thelonius at 11:15 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
Easily one of the best weekends of my life. Good, good times. And no, you can't hear the details.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:22 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:22 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure if I've ever come right out and said it here before, but I am not a cool person. I not only almost never do cool New York things, I almost never do normal New York things like go out to see shows or stand in line for fancy cupcakes or instagram pictures of coffee. So when the blackout hit I was in my apartment, with some friends who were in from out of town, talking about people we knew in Baltimore. Yeah.
BUT
Once it started to get dark and Bloomberg started to say that the electricity was going to all come on any minute now, we headed to where we thought would be the coolest place to be when all the lights came on at once: Times Square. And that is how I got to see the stars over Times Square at midnight. And I will be telling that story for as long as I live, because for those few hours (until 3:30 am or so when we all gave up and went home when it became clear there wouldn't be any power restoration before dawn plus they'd set up these giant strobe lights for some stupid reason like car safety), I was COOL.
posted by Mchelly at 11:31 AM on August 15, 2016 [10 favorites]
BUT
Once it started to get dark and Bloomberg started to say that the electricity was going to all come on any minute now, we headed to where we thought would be the coolest place to be when all the lights came on at once: Times Square. And that is how I got to see the stars over Times Square at midnight. And I will be telling that story for as long as I live, because for those few hours (until 3:30 am or so when we all gave up and went home when it became clear there wouldn't be any power restoration before dawn plus they'd set up these giant strobe lights for some stupid reason like car safety), I was COOL.
posted by Mchelly at 11:31 AM on August 15, 2016 [10 favorites]
Stars over Times Square at midnight. That sounds... weirdly like a line from a Tom Waits song.
In Toronto at around midnight there were efforts underway to restart the grid. If you looked downtown, you could occasionally see all the bank towers flicker back into existence, lights blazing for a second or two, before they vanished into oblivion again.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:35 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
In Toronto at around midnight there were efforts underway to restart the grid. If you looked downtown, you could occasionally see all the bank towers flicker back into existence, lights blazing for a second or two, before they vanished into oblivion again.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:35 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
My memories are actually of a really fun few days from the wrong side of the river in Ottawa, an unexpected 3-day vacation. I mainly recall barbeques in the park with friends and the shops along Elgin street giving out free ice cream when their freezers lost their chill.
This was a really easy "emergency" compared to how grim things were during the 97 ice storm only a few years prior. It was almost festive. And the milky way in the sky too, from my back-door fire escape. I'd forgotten that detail.
posted by bonehead at 11:37 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
This was a really easy "emergency" compared to how grim things were during the 97 ice storm only a few years prior. It was almost festive. And the milky way in the sky too, from my back-door fire escape. I'd forgotten that detail.
posted by bonehead at 11:37 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
I was up in cottage country north of Toronto, where the power going out was pretty frequent. Once we heard that the blackout went all the way down to NYC I was wowed by how we suddenly felt linked... by having lost our electric links.
posted by ldthomps at 11:53 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by ldthomps at 11:53 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
I don't have much of a story (I was at work! I rode my bike home!), but a friend of mine was a young lawyer minutes away from arguing his very first case in front of a judge and jury. He was nervous and feeling inadequately prepared, so when the lights went out and stayed out he was the happiest guy in Toronto.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:55 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:55 AM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
I was living in a one room apartment above an Ethiopian restaurant in the East Village with four other 20-somethings. It was hot, and we went to Washington Square in the middle of the night. Everyone had glow sticks and drums. Honestly, I'd give so much to go back there right now - it was a very nice moment in time. For years afterwards, whenever we lost power, my boyfriend and I would scream "Blackout 2003!" at one another. He's married to someone else now, and the Ethiopian restaurant is a shoe store.
posted by sockermom at 12:02 PM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by sockermom at 12:02 PM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
The thing about the blackout is that I didn't know it was happening. I didn't know it was happening because I was in high school and had snuck my boyfriend over my house after school that day, and we had proceeded to jump each other's horny high-school bones for hours.
The phone would NOT STOP RINGING during our clumsy activity, which I thought was hilarious, until I thought, "maybe I should pick it up." I did, and it was my mother's friend, telling me my mom was desperately trying to get a hold of me. Worried that something was really wrong, I called my mom at work immediately, and she was at once relieved and totally pissed. She said, "Well, with all the commotion, I don't know when I'll be home, it's hard enough getting phone calls through with the network all messed up." I played like I knew what she meant, but eventually had to admit I had no idea what was going on. She told me there was some massive blackout happening on the East Coast and it was all over the news, etc.
She said she'd probably get stuck in traffic on the way home, and to make myself dinner and entertain myself.
We entertained ourselves for a while longer, yes we did.
Please for the love of god I hope my mother has no idea what Metafilter is
posted by rachaelfaith at 12:11 PM on August 15, 2016 [10 favorites]
The phone would NOT STOP RINGING during our clumsy activity, which I thought was hilarious, until I thought, "maybe I should pick it up." I did, and it was my mother's friend, telling me my mom was desperately trying to get a hold of me. Worried that something was really wrong, I called my mom at work immediately, and she was at once relieved and totally pissed. She said, "Well, with all the commotion, I don't know when I'll be home, it's hard enough getting phone calls through with the network all messed up." I played like I knew what she meant, but eventually had to admit I had no idea what was going on. She told me there was some massive blackout happening on the East Coast and it was all over the news, etc.
She said she'd probably get stuck in traffic on the way home, and to make myself dinner and entertain myself.
We entertained ourselves for a while longer, yes we did.
Please for the love of god I hope my mother has no idea what Metafilter is
posted by rachaelfaith at 12:11 PM on August 15, 2016 [10 favorites]
Great timing. I just ordered a copy of this book called The Grid, which talks about this outtage, among other grid-problem events.
posted by small_ruminant at 12:49 PM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by small_ruminant at 12:49 PM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
Oh man, I had nearly forgotten about this. My band was supposed to play our first NYC show at Arlene's Grocery that night. We got as far as Poughkeepsie when we heard about the blackout. We chilled out at a rest stop for a couple hours and made some calls, then turned around and headed back to Burlington, VT when we realized it wasn't looking like it was going to come back on. We ended up rescheduling the gig for a few months later, but it was a bummer at the time.
posted by brand-gnu at 1:00 PM on August 15, 2016
posted by brand-gnu at 1:00 PM on August 15, 2016
I was in living in Detroit proper when the grid went down. I was woefully unprepared.
Not just my electric went down, I also lost water service when the blackout hit. Being single, my kitchen wasn't exactly stocked to the gills. Worse, I had no stored or bottled water, only water in the house was in the toilet tank. I had stupidly put off putting gas in the car, figuring I'd do it the next day. So I couldn't risk going anywhere that had power (over an hour drive), being my car's gas tank was barely above empty and my mower's gas can was bone dry. I did have enough fuel to drive to the corner station - not for gas (the pumps were out of service, of course), but to buy the last of the ice and bottled water they had in stock. It wasn't much, just enough to get me through a night, maybe two if I needed to stretch it.
I spent the rest of the blackout on my front porch drinking beer and listening to a battery powered radio (thank goodness I actually had batteries on hand). I was one of the lucky ones, being I lived on the same grid as some important local utilities. So I had my power back about 20 hours after the fact.
I'm no survivalist (furthest thing from it, to be honest) and now live in a more rural area. But I learned a big lesson. Never again do I want to be so damn unprepared for an emergency. I now make sure I always have a few things on hand to get me thru a few days...just in case.
posted by bawanaal at 1:06 PM on August 15, 2016 [3 favorites]
Not just my electric went down, I also lost water service when the blackout hit. Being single, my kitchen wasn't exactly stocked to the gills. Worse, I had no stored or bottled water, only water in the house was in the toilet tank. I had stupidly put off putting gas in the car, figuring I'd do it the next day. So I couldn't risk going anywhere that had power (over an hour drive), being my car's gas tank was barely above empty and my mower's gas can was bone dry. I did have enough fuel to drive to the corner station - not for gas (the pumps were out of service, of course), but to buy the last of the ice and bottled water they had in stock. It wasn't much, just enough to get me through a night, maybe two if I needed to stretch it.
I spent the rest of the blackout on my front porch drinking beer and listening to a battery powered radio (thank goodness I actually had batteries on hand). I was one of the lucky ones, being I lived on the same grid as some important local utilities. So I had my power back about 20 hours after the fact.
I'm no survivalist (furthest thing from it, to be honest) and now live in a more rural area. But I learned a big lesson. Never again do I want to be so damn unprepared for an emergency. I now make sure I always have a few things on hand to get me thru a few days...just in case.
posted by bawanaal at 1:06 PM on August 15, 2016 [3 favorites]
I was working from my home near Ann Arbor when the power went out. It was a fine blue sky day, so why is the power out? Weird. My UPS kicked in and Comcast was still working, so I looked at the news and learned the grid was down. I had enough battery left to send emails to people and set my Out Of Office message, and make a few more work calls, update some notes. And then I signed off. I was impressed that my Comcast internet never went down before I ran out of battery.
I always enjoy blackouts for the chance to hang with the neighbors and grill impromptu steaks. But the neighbors there were obsessed with the fact that we were on the edge of the blackout and they would plot their trips to get gas. I was like "Sheesh, the power is out. Just stay home and relax!" but they just couldn't calm down. And by the end, some had sourced generators and were blasting us all with the noise while they sat inside watching TV. It really messed up what could have been great. Generators, yuck. And that neighborhood, it was boring. I live in a more sociable spot now, thank goodness.
posted by elizilla at 1:33 PM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
I always enjoy blackouts for the chance to hang with the neighbors and grill impromptu steaks. But the neighbors there were obsessed with the fact that we were on the edge of the blackout and they would plot their trips to get gas. I was like "Sheesh, the power is out. Just stay home and relax!" but they just couldn't calm down. And by the end, some had sourced generators and were blasting us all with the noise while they sat inside watching TV. It really messed up what could have been great. Generators, yuck. And that neighborhood, it was boring. I live in a more sociable spot now, thank goodness.
posted by elizilla at 1:33 PM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
Also it's 13 years later and I'm still mad that Haagen Dasz decided it would be better to let all their ice cream melt than to sell it at a discount or give it away like everybody else. Like, every time I pass the store I still remember and shake my inner ineffective [cheap] fist.
posted by Mchelly at 1:42 PM on August 15, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by Mchelly at 1:42 PM on August 15, 2016 [7 favorites]
I had recently moved from New York to Texas and my flight back to NYC was landing when the blackout hit. I remember texting (slowly, T9-style), something like, "NYC! I am in you!" or whatever we said back then, then the lights promptly went out.
Since I was there on a business tab, I decided to scoop up random people in my cab as we crossed the park and drop them where they were going on my way to the hotel. It was a blast. The hotel only had a power outage overnight so the next morning, I invited all my friends to come shower and watch bad television in white robes and empty out the minibar.
Beats the heck of having a multi-day, hurricane-related power outage at home where I have to deal with, like, actual consequences on my own dime. Would def. travel for power outage adventure again.
posted by *s at 1:52 PM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
Since I was there on a business tab, I decided to scoop up random people in my cab as we crossed the park and drop them where they were going on my way to the hotel. It was a blast. The hotel only had a power outage overnight so the next morning, I invited all my friends to come shower and watch bad television in white robes and empty out the minibar.
Beats the heck of having a multi-day, hurricane-related power outage at home where I have to deal with, like, actual consequences on my own dime. Would def. travel for power outage adventure again.
posted by *s at 1:52 PM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
I was working from my home near Ann Arbor when the power went out.
Hey, I was in A2 as well! I remember seeing some traffic lights out and thinking that there was a power outage affecting just North Campus, then I thought, maybe it's all of Ann Arbor, then the enormity of the situation hit me. I was living in an off-campus house with a mix of grad students and undergrads who viewed the situation as an excuse to party, but I became progressively uneasier. As the power didn't come back on, I started to feel for the first time that something had fundamentally changed and the protection of living in a stable first-world democracy that I took for granted wasn't an ironclad guarantee any more. Nothing that happened since then -- Katrina was two years later -- has changed my mind.
I had three-quarters of a tank of gas and I set out for my parents' house in Chicago the next morning.
posted by Ralston McTodd at 2:40 PM on August 15, 2016
Hey, I was in A2 as well! I remember seeing some traffic lights out and thinking that there was a power outage affecting just North Campus, then I thought, maybe it's all of Ann Arbor, then the enormity of the situation hit me. I was living in an off-campus house with a mix of grad students and undergrads who viewed the situation as an excuse to party, but I became progressively uneasier. As the power didn't come back on, I started to feel for the first time that something had fundamentally changed and the protection of living in a stable first-world democracy that I took for granted wasn't an ironclad guarantee any more. Nothing that happened since then -- Katrina was two years later -- has changed my mind.
I had three-quarters of a tank of gas and I set out for my parents' house in Chicago the next morning.
posted by Ralston McTodd at 2:40 PM on August 15, 2016
What did we get out of it? Lots of trees cut down and the same old chestnut of 'we can't bury the lines, that's too $pick_one"
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 5:00 PM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 5:00 PM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
I was on vacation and woke up from a nap by the silence of everything going OFF. The silence woke me. I did have my cell phone at the time and texted my friend who worked on Parliament Hill Ottawa who told me the updates. But being so close to the hill got me up and going within three hours.
Still got a week off work.
posted by aclevername at 5:47 PM on August 15, 2016
Still got a week off work.
posted by aclevername at 5:47 PM on August 15, 2016
I was on a trip to Cedar Point with my now wife. We had just eaten weed brownies and were the next people in line behind the people who got stuck on Millennium Force when the power went out. It was not a good day. But it could've been a lot worse if we had been 15 people ahead in line.
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:55 PM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:55 PM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]
I was in Brooklyn, in the middle of an online chess game. Crazy, huh?
posted by swift at 6:05 PM on August 15, 2016
posted by swift at 6:05 PM on August 15, 2016
The boss tried to make us work at my corporate media production house job, but, pfft. We left.
I walked home from Chelsea, helped a lady get her grandma across the Brooklyn Bridge who was scared because the bridge was swaying. It was so cool, actually to see the bridge sway and work the way it's supposed to. Everyone got a bottle of water on the other side from the then-Borough president, Marty Markowitz, aka Mr. "This is my 12th envelope opening today! Glad to be here! Fuhgeddaboudit!" He wasn't so bad that day: "Welcome home to Brooklyn, everybody! Welcome home!"
The bodega next to my building gave out sodas and water, and the diner next door gave away all their ice cream and desserts (I scored a slice of apple pie and some ice cream); the kids played in the park across the street and in the courtyard while flashlights were trained on them.
I was very happy that I lived on the 4th floor of my 31-story building. No one really drove, so aside from flashlights, it was pretty dark on my block, though it wasn't quiet. The kids stayed up pretty late that night playing, just like I had a child in the 70s.
But the coolest memory was being able to see stars that I hadn't been able to see since I'd left Wisconsin 10 years earlier. I sat on my balcony and watched them for a long while.
posted by droplet at 8:03 PM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
I walked home from Chelsea, helped a lady get her grandma across the Brooklyn Bridge who was scared because the bridge was swaying. It was so cool, actually to see the bridge sway and work the way it's supposed to. Everyone got a bottle of water on the other side from the then-Borough president, Marty Markowitz, aka Mr. "This is my 12th envelope opening today! Glad to be here! Fuhgeddaboudit!" He wasn't so bad that day: "Welcome home to Brooklyn, everybody! Welcome home!"
The bodega next to my building gave out sodas and water, and the diner next door gave away all their ice cream and desserts (I scored a slice of apple pie and some ice cream); the kids played in the park across the street and in the courtyard while flashlights were trained on them.
I was very happy that I lived on the 4th floor of my 31-story building. No one really drove, so aside from flashlights, it was pretty dark on my block, though it wasn't quiet. The kids stayed up pretty late that night playing, just like I had a child in the 70s.
But the coolest memory was being able to see stars that I hadn't been able to see since I'd left Wisconsin 10 years earlier. I sat on my balcony and watched them for a long while.
posted by droplet at 8:03 PM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
Let's talk about the nine-day blackout we had in Western Queens back in 2006.
Let's talk about the two-week blackout we had in Rochester, NY back in 1991.
posted by Lucinda at 8:55 PM on August 15, 2016
Let's talk about the two-week blackout we had in Rochester, NY back in 1991.
posted by Lucinda at 8:55 PM on August 15, 2016
Oh, 2003. Summer of worms for Windows, where about once a month, all Windows computers just...didn't work.
The 2003 blackout remains the most controversial thing I know of in Information Security. I know just as many credible people who consider this the first cyberwar test, as who consider this a failure of a creaky system.
I know of many things people have doubts on, but nothing where people are so...sure.
posted by effugas at 2:07 AM on August 17, 2016
The 2003 blackout remains the most controversial thing I know of in Information Security. I know just as many credible people who consider this the first cyberwar test, as who consider this a failure of a creaky system.
I know of many things people have doubts on, but nothing where people are so...sure.
posted by effugas at 2:07 AM on August 17, 2016
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posted by The Whelk at 8:51 AM on August 15, 2016 [5 favorites]