OT: Where were you when the lights went out?

[WDL]

Some observations:

MARS - The elimination of "light pollution" made it ideal to
observe Mars while it's temporarily orbiting so close to Earth!

Problem is (personal) I don't have a telescope and couldn't find
my binoculars! Must have been wonderful for the amateur
astonomers! A God-given opportunity!

TECHNOLOGY - Unlike 1965 where transistor radios were ubiquitous - the "everywhere" devices now are cell phones, laptop and hand-held computers & PDAs. None of those worked or were able to access the internet! One man on the street in Manhattan had a transistor radio and was surrounded by a crowd who wanted to hear what was happening! (BTW he called it a "transition radio")

GREED - DETROIT - Store owner - when people started rushing in to buy bottled water, he upped the price to $175 a case! Probably would have charged $10 a candle if he had any.

PREPAREDNESS - We experienced a most unusual local four hour power failure six months ago. We had lots of candles from camping, decoration etc. Our house was lit up with about 12 candles in an absolute sea of darkness. After about 20 minutes, someone in another house had found one candle and added a tiny light to the sea.

What we hadn't foreseen was that our three cats had never seen live flames before and were playing with the flames. One cat singed the fur on its belly walking over a short candle! Another knocked a candle over!

Next day went to a hardware store and bought two fluorescent battery powered lamps and batteries and have them at hand for immediate use. Unlike my binoculars, I know where the lamps are!

TERRORISM - As Krissel pointed out - if ever there was notice served on all of us (the developed world) about how vulnerable our technology makes us - how easily we can be paralysed - surely this was a warning to heed.

While the U.S. suffered the obscenity of Sept 11th - it's the entire developed world that is the target of the fundamentalist hatred. The U.S. is just the prime target by virtue of it being the world leader.

I won't get into how ashamed many of us in Canada are at the doofus prime minister we have, surrounded by a bunch of dolts in his cabinet. My blood pressure revs up and my veins and arteries can't withstand the strain.

WDL

[Gregg]

Our lights went out around 9PM.

We went to bed early. It's been a busy week!

Heard a TV reporter saying the buses weren't running, even though they run on gasoline. Guess he didn't realize where that gas comes from.... gas pumps - electric gas pumps.  

[kelly]

Like some other Big News. Found out about it here first.

Then watched it on ABC.

Glad it wasn't me.

Long walk from Manhattan to Queens for example.

[CyberPet]

Mom & Dad inlaw had power (they are just across the water, by Lake Erie, from Buffalo) while my Brother inlaw and his wife had no power, they live in St. Catharines (by Lake Ontario). So it seems that not everyone was out of power, but many enough and mainly in the crowded cities.

I just wonder what would have happen if it was in the coldest parts of the winter, now that would have been terrible. Not many seem to know how to keep warm and get fresh water nowdays without turing a tap or switching a flick.

[kelly]

From what I've read Petra.

The fact that there was a Heat Wave going on was a big part of it.

Seems it's much less likely in the Winter.

But you never know.

[Bernie]

"Don't you remember the last big one in Nov 1965 ? -- the number of babies born the following July and August was extraordinary"
 Ann just last night said the same thing RHP

[Paddy]

We just got our power back here in Newcastle, Ontario (I'm at my parents' summer place on Lake Ontario, 50 miles east of Toronto) about an hour or so ago. It went out at 4:11 PM yesterday and was off until around 3 AM this morning, then went out again at about 9 AM. They've warned us that we may have rolling blackouts throughout the weekend.

Around 11 AM (when I last listened to the CBC) about 50% of Toronto had power restored. My sister, who lives in Coburg, 20 miles to the east of Newcastle, had power back as of 1:30 AM this morning and didn't lose it again like we did.

Line-ups at gas stations that have power are horrendous, and some operators have been engaging in price-gouging, charging $1/litre, instead of the usual $0.69 or so. The Toronto airport is a mess - with every Air Canada flight cancelled, no cell service working in the area, and a shortage of cabs etc. People are waiting three hours in line at pay phones and a CBC reporter said one line for rebooking flights was about a kilometre long!

The TTC has cancelled all subway service today and people were told to stay home from work.

We're planning another barbeque tonight - just in case!!!

I believe all of MA is fine - flights were being redirected to Boston all evening yesterday.

[sluggo]

Was out on the Harley at one of the local watering establishments when it all happened. Someone with a full dress bike turned on his FM radio and when the news came out they just dragged out a couple of generators and business continued like nothing happened. Later on we could almost see the power coming back on house by house. Glad it wasn't out long, though. The A/C sure has been nice in the house lately during this big heat and humidity spell in upstate NY! And I mean the real upstate, not Westchester County!

[Peter]

Didn't lose power (thank god)  Instead we were trying to put out a fire that had totally engulfed one of our barns

Barn needs a new roof & some beams in the wall- completely destroyed our grain dryer ($28,000 new), melted part of a tire (still usable), and wrecked a belt conveyor (more $ than its worth).

Thankfully our 2 $42,000 tractors were moved before the flames got to where the were parked.

Thankfully no one was seriously hurt (my mom did get a mild burn all down her right arm)

Good to unload- right now we are rather frantic because we needed everything that was damaged.

Now- someone top that!

Peace-
Peter

[Raven]

Kinda fun watching all the inconvenience on TV. Nothing too tragic, thank goodness. Seems the majority of people pull through and help out where it's needed. Especially for all those folks whose dream was to be a traffic cop!

It's times like this I'm glad I live in a small city in Northern Canada. Fresh air. No traffic. No SARS. No BSE. No West Nile. No terrorists. No power outages. Lots of friendly folks and awesome Northern Lights.

Just black flies! :-)
Actually I take that back. It's been so hot this summer, there are no bugs.
We're going fishing tonight on a cool, clean lake. Sun sets around 10pm.
Wanna come?

[kelly]

Sounds pretty nice Raven.

[Bobun]

Very Interesting, The many reactions to this Phenomenon.
 I'd like to throw in the thought that this might involve a
visitation from an alien visitor. Hey! are you certain it can't be?     Tee Hee.

[Paddy]

Peter - so sorry to hear about your barn fire - but good to hear that nobody was seriously hurt and that you rescued the tractors, and that the barn itself can be repaired. I remember seeing a local barn fire here when I was quite little - it was a typical old Ontario wooden barn, filled with hay. Once it got going, there was not much anyone could do.

Lights dimmed a bit a few minutes ago - we all looked at each other...but nothing more happened. The sheer size of this blackout made the vulnerability of the entire electrical grid in Canada and the US frightenly apparent.

[kelly]

Peter. Missed the note about the Fire. That's too bad.

Hope your Mom is ok.

That's the most important thing of course.

Possessions can always be replaced. People can't.