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20 years ago...

Archer
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We were sitting in the dark. The great Northeastern blackout of 2003, that originated in Ohio, and put around 55 million in the dark all across Ontario and a few US states.

Our power at home was only out for about 6 hours, but where I worked it was out for days. The manufacturing plant was fed by an older line from an older substation, and it was low priority.

Anyone else live through it?
 
sheepdoll
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Sargent Pepper taught the band to play...

(sorry I could not resist. I live on the other coast anyway.)
 
Cenzo
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Thanks for the reminder. I remember this one well. We had just arrived in NYC from Chicago with our young sons to visit some friends. We were playing at a park and went for ice cream and couldn't buy any because the power was out and they couldn't run the registers. Then there was a mumbling on the street that power was out everywhere, and more widespread than NY. We managed to get some steaks and cooked them for dinner on a charcoal grill and ate dinner by light of candelabra which was kinda cool. I'll remember that dinner for a long time. I don't remember how long we were without power but it was a few days.

My wife and I had an odd streak of arriving somewhere on vacation and having the power go out shortly after we arrive. I can remember these others besides the 2003 blackout
- Our honeymoon in Florida during a thunderstorm
- Visiting our same friends in NY when a squirrel ran into a transformer behind their house
- In Florida again, driving to Cape San Blas in a Cat 1 hurricane
- Visiting relatives in Cincinnati during a storm

All on the first day of arriving somewhere. If you ever invite us over to your house, make sure you have a generator,
Edited:
 
Archer
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sheepdoll sheepdoll
Sargent Pepper taught the band to play...

(sorry I could not resist. I live on the other coast anyway.)

I’m assuming this is some Beatles reference...sorry not my thing...
 
Pastorbottle
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Back when I lived in the East Gippsland region, we used to have regular blackouts due to storms, usually only a few hours at a time.
We had an enormous antique ormolu candle chandelier, which took around 24 candles over 2 levels, we converted the upper level to electric light and kept the lower level as candles @16 of them. We put it in the dining room.
It came in handy whenever we had a blackout, we had one room with light, and it was surprisingly effective. It was also good for dinner parties especially in winter when combined with a roaring open fire.

I’d share pix, but my evil sister, has stolen all the pix, even those from places she never lived events she never experienced, people she never met, and stuff she never even saw!
Edited:
 
Foo2rama
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Archer Archer
We were sitting in the dark. The great Northeastern blackout of 2003, that originated in Ohio, and put around 55 million in the dark all across Ontario and a few US states.

Our power at home was only out for about 6 hours, but where I worked it was out for days. The manufacturing plant was fed by an older line from an older substation, and it was low priority.

Anyone else live through it?
I was west coast so I was unaffected but I remember.
 
abrod520
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I remember this well - at the time I was a volunteer for the ambulance corps in the NY suburb we lived in. Everyone thought it had something to do with another terrorist attack since it was so soon after September 11th, so all of us were called in along with the fire department to remain on standby. After a few hours as it became clear no major events were happening, we all ended up grilling a bunch of meat that would've gone bad - maybe from some of the grocery stores or restaurants in town, can't recall. It ended up being a strangely pleasant evening, but I'm just glad I wasn't one of the people stuck on trains or subways etc.
 
gbesq
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I remember it very well. I was living in Connecticut at the time. What I remember even more vividly is the 1977 blackout in New York City which resulted in widespread looting, arson and other criminal activity. It was truly one of the low points for the city.
 
Perrier
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Not quite the same, but I spent a month in the Mongolia wilderness without electricity, and living in tents. What made it "easy" was that's the norm there, so I just had to get on with things.

I spent a day in North Korea without electricity. It was fine, as I spent most of the day in the hotel drinking the local beer (amazing)...
 
Archer
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Walrus Walrus
It was blamed on a squirrel wasn’t it. I don’t know if that was actually true. Shows you how solid our infrastructure is. I’m trying to remember it but so many once in a generation events have taken place since then I’m losing track
http://scadamag.infracritical.com/i...quirrel-cause-the-northeast-blackout-in-2003/

"The blackout's proximate cause was a software bug in the alarm system at the control room of FirstEnergy, an Akron, Ohio–based company, which rendered operators unaware of the need to redistribute load after overloaded transmission lines drooped into foliage. What should have been a manageable local blackout cascaded into the collapse of much of the Northeast regional electricity distribution system."

Northeast blackout of 2003 - Wikipedia
 
Walrus
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Archer Archer
"The blackout's proximate cause was a software bug in the alarm system at the control room of FirstEnergy, an Akron, Ohio–based company, which rendered operators unaware of the need to redistribute load after overloaded transmission lines drooped into foliage. What should have been a manageable local blackout cascaded into the collapse of much of the Northeast regional electricity distribution system."

Northeast blackout of 2003 - Wikipedia
Ya that was mentioned in the article posted it was satire about the squirrels but many still believe it.
 
sheepdoll
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Years ago we lost phone/internet for a week. It was blamed on squirrels.
 
TDBK
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My wife and I were living in Manhattan at the time but were away in the French countryside for a sweltering week. Arrived at the airport to come home and the agent wouldn't check us in, said all flights to NYC were cancelled -- "NEXT!" and wouldn't tell us anything. Of course we thought the worst so soon after 9/11, but were glad to hear it was just a blackout. By the time we got home it was over, always felt like we missed a signature NY moment.
 
SC1
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We lived in NYC at the time... it was bothersome and troubling in a post-9/11 era until we knew what was up.
 
lillatroll
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I did not live through your blackout, but while living in Malawi, we had to contend with no electricity a few days a week. Our compound generator went caput, the electric company said it would take 3 to 6 months to get the replacement parts. Without electricity we had no water either. After 9 days, the replacement parts were found from somewhere and we could stop pissing in buckets and have a hot shower. The things we take for granted,. I learnt to appreciate many things after living there.
 
flw
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I remember it very well indeed. My best friend from college had just driven from Maryland to Michigan with his wife to see our newborn, and we were living in a faculty apartment in the boys' dorm at the time (a couple of window units for air conditioning, and it was incredibly hot - over 90° F at the time). About an hour after they arrived, he and I drove a few miles to a Kroger supermarket to get food for the visit. We were just pushing a full cart of groceries to the checkout when the power went down, around 4 pm. The market employees instructed us to put all the food back before leaving the store (they couldn't process purchases, even though we had cash). When we got outside, it was utterly chaotic. I started the car and ran the radio from one end of the AM and FM dial to the other - nothing but static anywhere. THAT was disturbing - we were convinced it was some kind of mass-scale terrorism incident.

We returned empty-handed to the campus, sweltered through the night, and as we were preparing to pack up and drive to Maryland, the power returned, after about 28 hours. Scary.
 
ghce
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sheepdoll sheepdoll
Years ago we lost phone/internet for a week. It was blamed on squirrels.

Damn Squirrels, we need Daleks !

 
sheepdoll
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Daleks are hairless squirrels inside those metal shells?

That explains a lot.

There has been a kit hanging around the birdfeeder. They get kicked out of the nest at this time of year. Tried to get a photo for this thread - no luck.
 
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