posted on August 18, 2003 01:31:54 PM new
Hello folks, this is nothing special but I work in Manhattan and live upstate about 65 miles so I was trapped in New York when the lights went out. My buddies in California asked me to email them when I could to tell them what happened. So I put together three separate emails telling my little story and thought I'd share them here. Again, nothing special about my story as I'm sure thousands of others had similar experiences but here it is anyway. Oh, I tend to use a fair amount of profanity when I write to my buddies, so I've tried to censor the emails.
Quick background - I work in Midtown, right across from Radio City and Rockefeller Center. I commute in and out of Grand Central and my normal commute time station to station is about 65 minutes. I am married and my beautiful wife and I have 3 year old twin sons. My family was also without power at home which was the main reason for my frustration for not being able to get home.
(Email 1)
Well, gentlemen, I survived the blackout but it was one hell of an interesting last 24 hours. As you might imagine, I was trapped in Manhattan last night. The company executives made sure that those of us who live outside the City had the option to go home with someone who lived locally, but me and one other guy said "f*** that" as we wanted to try to get out of Manhattan and we could see no sense in sitting in someone's local apartment with no power.
So we took off and spent a large part of the evening in Bryant Square Park with several thousand of our closest friends. It wasn't too bad (if you don't mind p**ing in bushes and just generally not being able to see a friggin thing!) but by about midnight we decided to try to get off the streets. So we headed back to our office building and to our surprise, the security guards let us in. So we ended up back at the company (on the 16th floor) and it was pitch black. Using our cell phones as flashlights, we found some candles and were in business. We raided the president's personal fridge for sodas and power bars and spent the remainder of the evening camped out on the floor.
The power came back on in our building at 5:00 a.m. so my friend decided to try to find a cab to take him home to Queens. I walked out with him and as luck would have it, he found a cab within 5 minutes, leaving me to fend for myself in an attempt to get out of Manhattan. I could have gone with him to Queens, but I very much wanted to get home and going to Queens would have just put me that much further from home.
This is where the fun really began and I'll fill you in on the details in Part 2, to come later.
Sincerely,
Blackout Boy
(Email 2)
OK, so Friday morning, 5:30 a.m., back on the streets of Manhattan and my co-worker had just hopped in a cab to get back to Queens.
I don't know if you guys have read Stephen King's "The Stand" but that’s the way Manhattan felt at 5:30. The streets were basically deserted, with a few people lurching around looking how I felt - tired, dirty and annoyed. There was virtually no traffic and of course, no stores open.
I started walking to Grand Central figuring I'd try to find a way out of the City. It was an odd feeling. I had never seen Manhattan so friggin empty. The night before, there were thousands of people around but now they were gone. "Where the hell is everyone?" I wondered aloud a few times. The sun was starting to come up so I felt basically safe although I was very alert for any "thugs" or other creeps who might be hanging around.
I arrived at Grand Central and was surprised at the lack of people in and around the building. I had expected to see people lying around outside but there were very few. I went in and there were no trains running and nobody had any information about when trains would start. So I went back outside as it was just too stuffy and humid in the building to stay inside. My original plan was to sit tight and make sure I was there to grab the first train out when service started but that clearly wasn't going to work. It was at this point that frustration really set in for me. I wanted to get the f*** outta there but felt helpless. I sat down on the curb, smoked a few cigs and just waited.
While waiting, a minivan drove up and the driver got out and announced that he was heading to Connecticut and asked if anyone needed a ride. About six people immediately jumped up and as they started to get in the minivan, the driver said, "ok guys, that'll be $150 each." Three guys turned around and left but the other three said, "fine." So there was some of that fine New York spirit of helping others that got so much attention in the news.
A short time after that, I heard a guy talking behind me about trying to get back to Beacon Station (the station where I park my car to take the train) so I turned around and saw that it was a guy I've seen many times on the platform in the mornings. Excited to actually see someone I "knew", I jumped up and said, "hey, I know you!" and he looked at me and said, "yeah, I know you too!"
Relieved that we had found a "buddy", we sat down and tried to map out a plan for getting home. Zack (the guy's name) told me that he had been up all night trying to find a way out and when that failed, he found a bar that was serving beers out of coolers so he proceeded to get hammered and party the night away. Of course, he was paying for it in the morning as he was hung over and sore from sleeping in some park. He said his feet were killing him and he didn't feel like he could walk much. We then pooled our money and between the two of us, had a whopping $35. "Well, thats not gonna get us anywhere," I said, "so you wait here and I'll try to find a working ATM."
Thus began the "Quest For Cash."
More later in the final installment - Blackout 2003 (part 3) - Tune in later......
(Email 3)
So the quest for cash began as I was starting to think that the only way we were going to get home would be to pay someone. Besides, if we were going to be trapped another day and night, I would need cash. Its funny how you forget about things like cash when you’re so used to carrying debit cards and such.
So I walked all over the place trying to find a bodega (or any other store) with power and hopefully a working ATM. On 45th and Madison I saw a bodega with power. Inside there was one of those little ATM’s that usually have the insane access fee, but at this point, I was just hoping the thing would work. A young woman and I reached the ATM at the same time and she swiped her card and the both of us had our fingers crossed. Sure enough, it spit out the cash for her so I then proceeded to get the maximum $300.
So things were looking up – I had cash (and also a fresh bagel) so I headed back to Grand Central feeling confident for the first time that maybe I’d get home soon. Ahh, but Grand Central was still a pit of doom and gloom as there was still nothing happening and nobody had any answers. So I suggested that maybe we try to find a bus out of the City and if we could just get over the George Washington Bridge, we could have someone drive down and get us.
So that was the new plan – get over the George Washington Bridge. We started trying to find a bus and noticed something that became a recurring theme all morning – empty buses driving all over the place. The first few we saw made us laugh. We were like, “all these stranded people and look at that EMPTY bus!” After about the 10th one, however, it became less funny. No way in the world should there have been empty buses that morning and all told, we probably saw close to 30.
We finally found a bus stop for a bus that would get us out of the City and into White Plains. Zack called his wife and told her to be ready to drive to White Plains to get us as soon as we give her the word that we were on the bus. So we waited. And waited. And waited some more. “Oh look, there goes another empty bus, ha ha.”
After a while, it became clear that the bus wasn’t coming (and by then there were at least a hundred people standing on the corner waiting and I didn’t want to be caught up in the crush if a bus actually did arrive). So we decided to head over to the Port Authority since that’s where most of the buses depart from. We also picked up another buddy as one of the guys waiting for the White Plains bus decided to join us. So we were three strong now and I was beginning to feel like Forrest Gump on that long run.
We covered the two or three miles to the Port Authority, during which, the humidity really started to get oppressive and the temperature rose steadily. By the time we got there, we are all covered in sweat and feeling disgusting. The Port Authority was a complete mob scene. People everywhere and of course, nobody in charge. We finally worked our way over to a Port Authority officer and he told us we needed to take a “GWB” bus to get over the bridge. He instructed us to wait across the street and the buses would be there shortly.
A bus finally arrived and we asked the bus driver if this was a “GWB” bus. The bus driver just looked at us and said, “what the hell is a GWB bus?” Oh, joy. We got a lot of answers like that to our questions so we boiled down their messages to the simple phrase "He says we're f***ed!" It went something like this, "Hey Fiset (changed from my real name used in the emails), what does he say?"
"He says, we're f***ed!"
It was about 9:00 a.m. and I was at the end of my rope. “F***!” I yelled to no one in particular. At that point I called Mrs. Fiset (again, changed from the original email) with the little remaining battery power I had on my cell and told her to call her father and tell him to get on his Harley and get down to the City to rescue me. So she put me on hold, called her father and sure enough, he said he’d try but for me to continue to try to get out on my own as he wasn’t even sure they’d let him into the City.
By this time there were three other guys who joined our little group so we were now six strong, all pi**ed off, hot, tired, hungry, dirty, etc. What a motley crew we were. I told the group that I might have a way out if my father-in-law could make it on his Harley so I was heading back to Grand Central since that seemed a logical meeting place. They wanted to know if he had a side-car attachment for the Harley. Sorry guys, but to each his own at this point. Since they had no other ideas, they joined me and we began the trek back across Manhattan (once again) to end up full circle at Grand Central.
Once we got back to Grand Central we noticed that not much had changed. There still weren’t many people around which was a surprise, especially after the mob scene at the Port Authority. We went into Grand Central to see if there was any new news and the first thing we noticed was that there were several trains on the platforms with their lights on. We asked a conductor what was going on and he told us that they were going to attempt to run a few trains out. And wouldn’t you know it, one of the trains was going up the Hudson line (my line). He told us it was leaving from track 37 in 5 minutes so we ran like hell and just made it in before the doors closed.
No seats available, of course, but we didn’t care. We just slumped down on the floor, high-fived and couldn’t believe how lucky we were to walk back to Grand Central just in the nick of time to catch that train. The problem, however, was that since there was no power on the tracks, none of the signal lights were working so the train was only moving at about 15 mph. It normally takes about 65 minutes to get from Grand Central to my station but this trip took a whopping four hours. The longest train ride of my life. But still, I found out later that that train was the only train to leave on the Hudson line until well into the evening on Friday.
So by some miracle, I managed to get the first, and only, train out of Grand Central on the Hudson line and even though I spent the bulk of the four hour trip on the floor, I was happy as hell to heading home.
As it turns out, my father-in-law made it down to the City and when he couldn’t get a hold of me, he called Mrs. Fiset who told him I got out on a train (I called her from the train on one of the train phones). Of course, had I known it was going to be a four hour train ride, I would have waited to ride out on the Harley.
Epilogue –
I had just finished cutting my lawn on Saturday when some wicked storm clouds moved into the area. A huge lightening bolt struck about a quarter mile from my house, and was followed by some of the most intense rain I’ve ever seen. And of course, the lightening strike knocked out our power. So we spent the next 9 hours without power on a hot, humid Saturday. I’m now looking into getting a generator as I’ve just about had my fill of blackouts.
posted on August 18, 2003 01:36:58 PM new
wow that was a cool story. Not a cool scene but a cool report. I guess we tend to take our modern life for granted. It hangs by such a thin little thread, dosen't it?
[ edited by orleansgallery on Aug 18, 2003 01:37 PM ]
posted on August 18, 2003 03:44:32 PM new
Wow. We actually got into the spirit when the lights went out! We drug out the good old camping gear. I was fortunate enough that I was already home from work. Sounds like all-in-all you didn't have a horrid time. What an adventure you had. It just goes to show that we really as more resillient than we give ourselves credit for and that we really do rely heavily on electric power.
Glad everything worked out for you. And, I know what you mean about dark. It was the quiet that got to me after awhile. Too freakin' quiet. I couldn't sleep because I'm used to background noise.
Cheryl
Power to the people. Power to the people, right on. - John Lennon
posted on August 18, 2003 06:32:38 PM new
Nah, it wasn't a "horrid" time just a frustrating time. Had I been home, it would have been better but its hard to be stuck away from my family when things out of the ordinary happen. Especially in this case when, at least for a while, we had no idea whether or not this was a terrorist plot.
"Adventure" is probably a good way to describe it in that it became my adventure or quest to get back to my family. Of course everything eventually worked out and now its just a good story.
posted on August 18, 2003 07:10:31 PM new
Your determined quest to get home to your family was admirable, fiset! Your wife can be proud that you didn't land in a rooftop blackout 2003 party or a local bar!
