My wife and I are currently in Day 2 of a blackout, thanks to a storm which knocked out about a quarter of the city's grid. It doesn't look like we'll get power soon. While I'm waitiing in the dark, what are YOUR worst blackout stories?
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I don't have any stories that are terrible, I'm afraid. Our power did go out about two weekends ago. I knew it because the console on the burglar alarm started chirping every 10 seconds and woke me up.
Somehow, that did not wake my wife up. What woke her up was the generator at my nextdoor neighbor's house, which kicked in when the power failed at 6 a.m.
Remember that time when four snowstorms hit in one week? Around here, we call it Snowpocalypse or Snowmageddon. (I used to live in Upstate New York, and my old community broke the record for snowfall four times between that Sunday and that Saturday.)
When Snowmageddon hit, my nextdoor neighbor went right to Home Depot and bought a generator. He went right to a machine and demanded a sales clerk come to him; he wasn't taking ANY chances that it would get sold while he walked away from it.
Since then, we have a standing invitation to come to their house if the power's out. And they are apologetic about how noisy it is when it runs for a test every Wednesday. But I figure if I hear it and it isn't Wednesday, it's because the power is out, and I'd be more concerned about that than the noise.
I recall the 2003 northeastern blackout. Fortunately, it did not happen in winter, so I have no serious stories. I do recall trying to pick up something at a local store that was still open shortly after the power went out. I asked if he knew how far the blackout stretched. He said something like, "Uh, New York? The entire east coast?"
Some people were without power for days, but we were in one of the first places to have its power restored, so we really only had a day and change without.
Two related stories:
Moon of the Crusted Snow, an award-nominated SF novel by Waubgeshig Rice, was inspired by the blackout. People on his rez got together to figure out who had what skills, traditional or modern, that would allow the community to function autonomously if the power never returned. He says they had everything worked out, and then the power came back.
Blackout Odyssey, a novel by Victoria Feistner, is a contemporary fantasy retelling of The Odyssey, set in Toronto during the 2003 blackout.
Snowmageddon was a bigger deal, though we were rarely without power. Everything not essential shut down for a week. I'd meet with my neighbours every day and we'd clear the snow from our street. A lot of whiskey was passed around. Our street ends at a main artery, and that was ploughed once daily by the city.
Back in 2021 we were hit by the Texas power failure (you may have heard of it; it was in all the papers), but not very hard. The power went out the first time early Monday morning for about eight hours. We put on some extra blankets and that was the worst of it for us. Friends of ours were hit much worse. The power went out three additional times over the course of the week, but only for about an hour or so each. I heard from people thousands of miles away from as far back as high school (and folks on this board reached out as well), but neither my niece nor my two nephews expressed any concern whatsoever. It's only a matter of time before the power grid fails completely. This problem could be solved by hooking up to the national power grid, but our governor at the time said he didn't want other states all "up in our business" (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean).
I keep seeing stories that say that because of the drought, Lake Powell behind Glen Canyon Dam is at such a low level that if it gets any lower, it will go "dead pool" and won't be able to generate power for half the Southwest. Won't that be fun?
I had a pretty good time during the night of the 2003 northeastern blackout. I was at work at Outdoor Life in NYC at the time. My officemates and I left work, and we knew the NJ Transit trains were down. Buses were the only way off the island. I nearly got on a bus with the photo editor, Cherie, to her place in PA... but at the last minute I stepped out of line and let other people get home. I had a friend from college who lived in the Village, and I decided to roll the dice and try to find her.
I found her address in a phone book at a bar, and then started walking south. I made it to Jen's place, and happily, she and her husband Jesse were there -- with a fridge full of beer that was just going to get warm if we didn't drink it. We spent some time in their apartment, then walked over to her brother's place nearby, where we hung out on the rooftop and looked at the city in the dark. The we walked over to Union Square, and enjoyed the massive drum circle. It was like nighttime at an urban Woodstock. Fantastic night, one of my all-time best.
The next morning, I woke up on their couch, borrowed a PG Wodehouse book for the train, and walked back up to Penn Station, stopping at a bodega for the most delicious cup of fresh-squeezed orange juice I've ever had. I caught one of the first trains home that morning. They hadn't yet got the electricity running, but they'd hooked up some diesel engines to the trains, and that did the job. Eventually I reached my station and made it home, where I stayed until trains were back on schedule again.
Good luck with your blackout, Cap! Make the most of any opportunities it opens up for you.
You used to work at Outdoor Life? I have a couple of Patrick F. McManus's books and met him at a book signing in 1986.
...with a fridge full of beer that was just going to get warm if we didn't drink it.
I understand. You really had no choice.
Yep -- I worked in those offices from 2003-2008, and then continued freelance for a while after that. Mostly, I worked in a sister publication, SHOT Business, for firearms retailers. I'm not a gun guy, but I can punctuate; I was hired on as a copy editor. And eventually, I found myself as managing editor of SHOT, and then later writing columns and interviews for the magazine (largely about non-gun stuff, like how to expand to stocking coolers or camping gear, since they had experts for the gun stuff).
I copy-edited maybe the last 2 or 3 years of Pat's columns. He was a friendly guy.
Oh, so you actually knew him! I'm not much of a gun guy, either, but my brother-in-law was, and when I was in college I would frequently be invited to my sister's house to house/dog-sit when they went hunting or fishing for the weekend. About the only reading material he had in the house was a stack of Outdoor Life, and I flipped to the "humor" section to see just how funny it really was. Pretty damn funny as it it turned out! I agree he was a friendly guy; I enjoyed meeting him. I was saddened to learn he died in 2018.
The power's back! It came on last night, which was just in time -- I was beginning to flag, physically. So I got a good night's sleep, and I'm busily pounding away on the keyboard to catch up. (And re-powering all my devices.)
I'm surprised there aren't more blackout horror stories. I've had a few, and just assumed it was a universal experience. LIke:
Back in 2021 we were hit by the Texas power failure (you may have heard of it; it was in all the papers)
I was aware of that blackout, as I was working at a paper. That's how I learned Texas wasn't attached to the national power grid, because Texas gonna Texas.
I recall the 2003 northeastern blackout. Fortunately, it did not happen in winter, so I have no serious stories.
I've been mad since 2003, and now I'm really mad.
Not at you, JD! I'm glad the 2003 blackout was more of an inconvenience than an emergency, and you got a decent party out of it. Well played.
That was not the case in Memphis, which had a blackout a few weeks before the New York blackout. Which is MY worst blackout story. On July 22, 2003, Memphis suffered a derecho, straight-line winds of more than 100 mph, qualifying as a Category 2 hurricane. (It was immediately dubbed "Hurricane Elvis," and it's got a Wiki page and everything.) The destruction was devastating. Trees uprooted, power poles knocked down, houses smashed. Three-quarters of the city lost power. And because the destruction was so widespread, the local utility company (MLGW), which had been underfunded for years, was overwhelmed. It took weeks to get power back to everyone.
My wife and I lost three trees -- each one, almost humorously, blocking one of our three entrances. A friend with a chainsaw cleared the driveway enough for us to get the cars out of the garage to go to work. But we were without power for 9 days -- in July. In Memphis. The heat and humidity were at their peak.
It took longer for some other neighborhoods to get power, depending on the damage. Utility crews from all over the Mid-South, from Nashville to Little Rock, from Cape Girardeau, Mo., to Jackson, Miss., pitched in. Ultimately, the city was back to normal-ish after about three weeks.
What's that? You've never heard of Hurricane Elvis? No surprise, because it was never mentioned on national news. Hundreds of thousands of American were without power, but we were in flyover country, so nobody bothered to cover it. I couldn't send my columns in that week, and when I told Maggie Thompson of CBG why, she didn't believe me. "You don't need a dog-ate-my-homework story," she said. "Just tell me there won't be a column this week." See, it hadn't been on the news on Wisconsin, so she thought I was making it up!
And then came New York on Aug. 16. A media hub was without power for 24 hours, and you'd think it was armageddon. Wall-to-wall coverage on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS. Newsweek (a real news publication back then) never mentioned the Memphis blackout, but devoted 23 pages of story and photos to the NYC blackout. Which, as noted, was basically an inconvenience. Admittedly, it was an inconvenience to millions of people. But people died in Hurrican Elvis. Hundreds of thousands of people, often poor and/or elderly, sweated through 19th century conditions for weeks. An American city stopped dead for the better part of a month.
And not a peep on the news. No one cared. And that's why I'm mad!
This time wasn't as bad. We were without power from Saturday afternoon to Monday night, which seemed like an eternity, and as I said, I was having trouble keeping my core temperature down. We were considering taking the dogs to a boarder, and maybe checking into a nearby hotel (so Joan could wash and dry her hair). But then Joan ran out when she saw a utility truck Monday afternoon and talked to the guy. He said we'd be back up Tuesday morning, but apparently he decided to do it earlier (in the dark, which is dangerous). I like to think it's because he talked to her.
So we're back, just having lost 2-3 days. But they were long ones! I don't know if we made the news this time, but it wasn't nearly as bad as 2003. I'm sure we'll be back to normal-ish by the end of this week. MLGW was a lot better prepared (and we're again getting help from surrounding communities).
My wife and I lost three trees
Late in the last century, my Dad had a small room added to the back of my childhood home. Very shortly after it was completed, a hurricane blew a tree over onto it, causing a couple grand worth of damage. The Old Man was not best pleased.
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