where were you when the lights went out?

The Backout happened at this time 2 years ago

I was at my house in Brooklyn...we all thought it was local...then everyone emerged from their houses, then we heard it was as far ad Detroit...Brooklyn didn't get power for another 26 hours.

My flight the Monday afterwards on Delta to RDU from LGA was cancelled as a result.

I was in canada of all things, but it still went all blacker than the middle of my eye up there.

I was working for the corporate office of a bank at the time on Broadway and 39th and I ended up walking home. What a wild experience that was.

I walked into the room with the copy machine and I hit the light switch, and everything went out. I thought I killed the circuit on my floor because everyone's offices went black.

Then we looked outside and saw the street lights were out. We then called out other office and learned all of Manhattan was out. I started to get a little worried about a possible terror attack and since it was close to 5pm anyway, I asked my boss if I could just leave and he allowed me.

I started walking home, and as I walked, I started learning how far the blackout went. I'd pass people on radios and I heard New Jersey, Ohio, and Michigan or wherever it ended.

It was also weird to see people working together. A regular guy throwing on an orange vest and directing traffic along a not-that-hectic northern blvd, Deli owners giving away some of their food, it was cool.

Another cool thing was that Song Airlines had started not long before the blackout and I had their schedule memorized. they were landing on Expressway Visual 31 that day and it worked out for me because the planes were still landing right over my head as I walked, and I saw that the Song planes, and assuming the others as well, were all on time for the next few hours.

I got home and learned that everything was cool, and like most people in NY, had/went to a party. We had a full moon and visibility was a lot better than I thought it would be and we swam and drank in the dark.

Wild day.

I was at my school on Chambers street. I took the day off to the handle paperwork for the fall semester. I was so ****ing pissed off, i figured "as annoying as it is to handle paperwork for school, of course, of all days I decide to come, there's a ****ing blackout!" grr. What sucked was that my plan after I was done at school was to meet up, with someone that I was seeing at the time, in bryant park. He was leaving to Ireland the next day(he was only in the city for a couple months on vacation) and that was supposed to be the last time we'd see eachother. So we never got to say bye to eachother, which was lame, but oh well.
So I walked up to 17th street to my grandmother's house (on the 18th floor :( :( :(), stayed the night there then got a ride home uptown the next day

I was actually at La Guardia.

I was doing the spotting thing and decided to rest for a bit, so I found a nice spot in one of the massage-chairs at Brookstone in the Central Terminal. I started playing with the remote when the lights went out and sirens went off for about 30 seconds.

My heart sank for a minute. :)

I ended up catching a cab to an area a few blocks from my place, and like Phil, saw all the restaurants with pitchers of water sitting outside for free.

I'll always remember the laid-back atmosphere...walking down the street with a flashlight, your head turned up to count the stars (reminded me of a farmstay in Australia, it was wild)...

Funny how things are more chaotic when we can actually see what we're doing.

I was at work in Brooklyn, right next to the Manhattan Bridge. The lights and computer monitors flickered and the power alarms on the servers screamed for a second, and everything came back on. 30 seconds later everything went off for good. A few months earlier a transformer under the street blew up and we lost power, and the building was under renovation so we figured it was from something minor like that. But when I walked downstairs and realized the whole neighborhood was out, and even the giant clock on the Watchtower building about 1/2 a mile away was out, I knew something was wrong. There were also some unusual brown puffs of smoke coming from the nearby waterfront power plant.

I called my mom at home in eastern Queens to see what was up. She told me what she heard on the news, that Toronto and Detroit were out too. I was kinda shaken by the insanity of that idea, and imagining what could have caused it and what might be in store. I just hoped to get home before dark.

I had no idea how to get home by bus, so I decided to walk to the LIRR Flatbush Ave station somehow imagining there might be diesel trains running. Of course there weren't because all the electric trains were stuck and blocking the tracks.

So I walked down Atlantic Ave through the armpit of Brooklyn, Bed Stuy, Bushwick, East New York, which are probably the last places you want to be during a time of civil unrest, but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. There were other stranded LIRR riders walking with me, many of whom were trying to get home to places way out east. Someone was handing out cups of water about a mile down Atlantic, but nothing after that. I had forgotten to go to the ATM earlier in the day so I only had a dollar on me, and after getting extremely thirsty about 5 or 6 miles into the journey, I ran into the only open grocery store along the whole route and used it to buy a bottle of Sprite (they were out of water).

I finally caught a bus just before Woodhaven Blvd, my walk totalling 9.25 miles according to Google Earth.

On the bus some psychotic kid in his late teens I guess starts talking to me for no apparent reason, explaining how he and his friends are going to bust into Toys R Us and get some Playstations and some other stores too. I suggested to him there was a high probablity of him getting shot. He agreed but still seemed interested.

I got to my house just as the last rays of sunlight were burning out and took a long shower.

I was on Atlantic Ave in Brooklyn driving home. Try to figue out why there was no radio stations and then realized there wasn't any traffic lights either. Took me six hours to get home that night.

i was actually flying. i went up that night to shoot a few approached at ISP. i had just picked up my clearance for the rwy 6 ILS and looked down at the plate for a second before i started descending. i looked up for a second and saw the ILS signal was dead. i called approach to see if there was somethign wrong with the transmitter at ISP. it didn't return for about 20 - 30 seconds, which was when Approach came up and told me to go missed and leave the airspace. i flew out over the ocean and kept circling while trying to get back in. after about 30 minutes they let me back in and since i was the only airplane in the airspace the controller told me exactly what had happenned. they had lost power for about 30 seconds, and the ILS had been down for almost a minute. after 4 ILS' i broke off over the south shore and did the city tour once. it was wierd seeing so many buidlings dark. the lights at LGA and JFK looked super bright at that point in time. i flew up the hudson, and after talking to LGA tower got cleared to track the 312 radial into the LGA VOR, overfly the field and depart on the 145 radial. it was an erie sight, glad i wasn't VFR that night.

when i landed back at FRG i got to my truck and startd the drive home. everything on the expressway was dark, and only one out of every 3 or 4 light poles were working. gladly i had my warning lights in the truck so i fired those up and made it home without an issue. my sister was stuck at her barn in prospect park and since there was no train service she had no way of getting home. i drove down there on side streets just to take it all in, got her home about 3 hours later because all the traffic lights were out. tried going to sleep but the *******s in the bar accross the street were outside since the AC didn't work. i didn't fall asleep until about 4 in the morning and woke up to still no power. ugh.. it was hot. :(

I was at work on Austin St.
Getting home sucked! Crossing Woodhaven Blvd without traffic lights is a terrible thing.
Later that night me and my friend Violette went and hung out in the parking lot next to Slate. We had a blast. We just put on music in the car and had some drinks... Over all a very good night.

I took many pictures and posted the entire thing on AD.com


Look at post 61
http://www.airdisaster.com/forums/showt ... kout+power

I was In It I'll tell you how it happened From My Account.

First When I wanted to go home to nj we walked down to the 57-7th ave station On The <Q> ANd I'didn't hear the train idiling so I knew something was up So when i heard the conductor walking up and down the station and saying there was a blackout no trains running I was like OH S**T And My dad was like what are you talking about your part of history! And Then we walked down to 36th street and park ave and stayed at his old work place. and some suprises i got during the blackout.

When No one was there in the travel agent office I got to grab some airline ticket folders

and Also I grabbed the ticket folder they used for concorde