20 years ago today

20 years ago today, August 14th, 2003 was the NE Blackout that hit the NE part of the US and parts of Canada.

It was one of those days where you can remember exactly what you were doing when it happened.

I was on my way home from work and my boss had asked me to drop some parts off at one of our suppliers that was on my way.
I had just pulled up and as I was walking in, the power went off.
I thought no big deal as I took the stuff in and left but I was still about 5 miles from home straight down a main road called Gratiot Ave which had about 10 or 15 traffic lights between there and home.
Lots of traffic on the road and every light was a pain in the ass to get through and as I came to each one, I was thinking why are all these lights out?

Turned on the radio and I remember not getting the normal stations to come in at first and I am thinking WTF is going on here?
When I finally got home from the ride that should have only taken 10 minutes but it took almost an hour, no power at home, I was thinking something is really wrong.

Finally the radio started talking about what was going on but they didn’t know many details, they just knew the power was out everywhere.

It was a pretty hot day with temps around 90 and I remember going to the corner store to see if I could get a pack of smokes and there was a little ice cream shop that a bunch of people were outside eating ice cream and they were giving it away for free so it didn’t all melt in the heat.

My power came back on the following day about 9 or 10 at night, so it wasn’t too bad for me.

a reply to: RazorV66

I remember that day. I still lived in NJ at the time and we actually had left for a trip to Hershey Park in PA for a few days. I remember thinking damn, I hope they have power, but luckily the park and the hotel we were staying at were fine. The blackout didn't extend that far west.

Sounds like an adventure. Today's gonna be a scorcher where I am, that's for sure. Sure is nice to have a mini split and power to run it.

l remember hearing about that in the news, but I live north east of the cities everyone calls the north east... and never lost power.
Those big city folk got a glimpse what will happen when society collapses, but they learned nothing from it

I remember that weekend. Living in NYC. I was on the subway and it just stopped. we had to all get out and walk through the tunnel using the maintenance path. Got to the surface and saw what was happening. No access to my money. Had $1 in my pocket and bought an ice cream as I walked. Started to walk home to Brooklyn from Chelsea in Manhattan. Subways were down and millions were on the streets.
Ran right into my (now wife) girlfriend, on some random street intersection. Crazy. Spent 3 days in darkness. The bars were packed with free beer as the coolers were down and no more ice.

You can blame the virus "BLASTER" for most of the disruption I think....

When Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play 🎸

Sorry

Taxi!

🚕💨💨

a reply to: nerbot

Wasn't that the one created by the US government to disrupt uranium production in the middle east?

a reply to: RazorV66

Yeah, I remember that day as well.
Power was out over 24 hours...and 2 nights sleep were in the outage time.

Remember it was QUIET.
Remember it was uncomfortably warm and humid.

We now have two battery operated fans.....just in case.

I remember this happening although it didn't affect me here in Vegas. But, a few years earlier, the eleven, ten, however many western states lost power for part of the day on August 10. It's the dog days of summer at that point, as hot a it's going to get and all but a little swath of Vegas bordering 95 had power and the downtown casinos seemed to have power. I'd guess they had massive generators.

For some reason the keg we had ordered was on the other side of town so that's how I got to see all this. A weird thing about power loss here in my little cul-de-sac is when the power goes out the people on the other side of the street still have their power. When it's 110 plus out there you are prone to a bit of jealousy seeing my neighbors lights on and I'm being cooked to death in my house.