Major power outage hits New York, other large cities

[Cloud9]

Yeah, so I got back to Long Island around 7 today after being stranded in the land of chaos that NYC had become. Luckily I was able to crash at a friend's place not too far from where I worked. It was definitely and interesting adventure!


One MAJOR concern that this brings to my mind...WTF is up with all this Homeland Security bullshit we've been fed for the past year? If this had been a terrorist attack, it would have been a disaster, it took way too long for the city to get organized and get people out!!!!!! If you consider this to have been a test or drill of our city's ability to handle disasters, I would say it failed to a large extent. That's very worrisome, especially when you consider that enemies here and abroad were probably watching closely to see how this situation was being handled...

[bsp-mich24]

Cloud9 summed-up the Homeland Security saga well. This prompted my post above this one " How prepared are you as of 8/16/03)".

One MAJOR concern that this brings to my mind...WTF is up with all this Homeland Security bullshit we've been fed for the past year? If this had been a terrorist attack, it would have been a disaster, it took way too long for the city to get organized and get people out!!!!!! If you consider this to have been a test or drill of our city's ability to handle disasters, I would say it failed to a large extent. That's very worrisome, especially when you consider that enemies here and abroad were probably watching closely to see how this situation was being handled...

[lifesaver]

I'll be the dick to say it.

I REALLY don’t care.

For all the holier than thou feelings some peeps put on the board about how Americans are all like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and a lawless society and uncivilized and other countries that share the continent but aren’t Mexico are more civilized and wouldn’t behave like those Americans. (not a direct quote, but a summation of the feelings on the board at one time or another....)

I really enjoy the fact that our kids in NYC behaved themselves EXEMPLELERY. The main reports of looting and rioting happened in where...OTTOWA? Which isn’t the US. LOL.

Seems were all human, doesn’t it...

Judge not. Thnax. Lifesaver enjoys irony. And is going to bed.

A proud American who’s proud we as Americans, behaved.

[PM_Mama00]

Exactly.

It was reported somewhere, I think maybe CNN or something? (I saw it on a chat board, could possibly not be true) that Detroit had looters.

If it's true... then thank you so much for actually thinking of Detroit throughout this, except in a negative way. BTW... the jackasses of Detroit actually behaved themselves. No crimes, no looting.

I'm just glad we have working water.

ETA: In my city, Southgate, they had been calling us periodically wtih a computer generated message giving us the latest details. I would listen for a second and then hang up (the mayor lives across the street so we didn't need the messages). It had said that our boil water advisory was over, so I brushed my teeth with sink water today.

Now I'm watching the news. I am just waiting for whatever sickness to kick in. Bacterial infection, food poisoning, or diarhea. GREAT.

[LeslieAGD]

GOOD MORNING GC!!! I am so extactically happy to have power again! Our power was out for at least 36 hours. It went out on thursday around 4pm and came back on this morning.

I live about 25 minutes out of Detroit and, as for Michigan, it effected the whole southeastern/metro area, up to Lansing, and out as far as Ann Arbor. I went out to get a pizza right after it happened because I didn't realize it was anything serious. Boy was I wrong! Traffic was gridlocked in the start of rush hour traffic and people were just being obnoxious because they didn't know to treat lights as four-way-stops. Luckily I just had to drive around the corner so I didn't get stuck.

The worst was the heat and lack of light. Thank goodness for corded phones, flashlights, candles, ricketty old radios, and cold basements. We stayed inside, played cards and board games all day, listening to the news updates. Luckily, we had plenty of bottled water and weren't effected too severely by the water conservation. We still took showers, albeit very very short ones. Yesterday, my mother started cooking all the meat in the frig and freezer, afraid she'd loose it. She told us stories about how things were back in Cuba and we talked about how much we rely on power now.

I'm just glad the worst outage in American History is OVER!

[PM_Mama00]

Leslie good lord where the hell do you live? I thought we were the last ones to get power back on.

[LeslieAGD]

In Troy...the power came on sometime in the middle of the night. I *think* sometime between 2 and 4 am.

What time did yours come back on?

[PM_Mama00]

We were out from 4:10pm Thursday to 8ish pm Friday.

Sucked a big fat ass.

[goldendelta]

It's so good to be back to GC. My power came back on around 12:30 am Thurs nite, but the blackout crashed my server and I couldn't get online. I was at work in Freeport when the power went out and it was fun driving home with no traffic lights. I opted to take the Southern State home and gladly sat in the taffic. But when I got home we had no food and we couldn't bbq because all our meat was frozen. Cheese and crakers for dinner! Yummy. My dad had to sleep in his office cause the trains weren't running. He caught a bus to Jamaica yesterday and got home sometime in the afternoon. Hope everybody else is ok!

[Peaches-n-Cream]

Last night, the lower East Side was still without power. I am not sure of their status now. Life is almost back to normal ezcept some restaurants are closed. There are signs saying they need to buy fresh produce.

[Buttonz]

Originally posted by Cloud9

One MAJOR concern that this brings to my mind...WTF is up with all this Homeland Security bullshit we've been fed for the past year? If this had been a terrorist attack, it would have been a disaster, it took way too long for the city to get organized and get people out!!!!!! If you consider this to have been a test or drill of our city's ability to handle disasters, I would say it failed to a large extent. That's very worrisome, especially when you consider that enemies here and abroad were probably watching closely to see how this situation was being handled...

They have said that the reason why it wasdealt with so 'well' was because New Yorkers were prepared after 9/11. Although things ran smoothly (to some degree) if this WAS a terrorist attack, you wouldn't hear anyone saying that it ran so soomthly. This just showed, IMO, how un-prepared we are still for anthor attack. BTW, the major problem my family had was having batteries for radio's...I had my discman that has a radio but it took awhile to figure out anthor radio that we had that ran on batteries that we had (AA). In the end I remembered that our radio in the bathroom ran on AA. We BBQ last night only because there was so much meat that was already defrosted, and the night before we lived on canned foods and anything that we could grab if we opened the firdge for a few seconds.

[ZTAMich]

My flight home from Orlando was smooth sailing today. It was overbooked, but what's new??

Luggage area at LaGuardia was a mess...bags left from who knows when. Piles and piles of suitcases.

Jackson Heights looks the same as I left it. Power's working great here!

[PM_Mama00]

WTF?! OMG... just heard on the news.... or on ABC This Week...

this whole thing started because of a downed power line in Cleveland. Are you serious?

[Tom Earp]

Go figure, Cleveland! LOL!

Find it interesting that no looting took place in the US, but Toronto and Ottawa did. What happened to the laid back Canadians?

It might have been from some squirl like happened in California!

Nope now saying it was an alarm system of some kind????

I still love the pointing of fingures around the North American Cont. While the Iraqis are smiling with glee!

[PM_Mama00]

OMG Tom! I can understand that post!