Who remembers the blackout of 2003?
I do, I do!!!
Five years ago today. Tonight, actually. I remember I was on my way home from work. At the time I was at TheaterMania, the ticket brokerage. The company was housed on that uber-Chelsea block anchored by the Limelight at one end and the West Side Club at the other.
Anyway, I'd left work around 5pm and boarded the subway heading home to make dinner for David. We were months away from moving in together - a huge step for both of us - and in that heady "Oh, I get to see him tonight!!!" phase of our relationship. Rather than get off the train at 137th, as I would normally do, I rode ahead to 145 to jump into the grocery for supplies and the liquor store for Jack Daniels. Then it happened. We left the 137th station, went maybe a block at the most, and suddenly slid to a total stop. For a heartbeat all the lights went out, then a completely different set of lights, lights I had not seen before, flickered on very bright.
There were about 20 people in my car (it had been packed at 42nd Street - thank god most of them had gotten off). A woman with a baby. Young people going home from first jobs. A big, thick muscled bearded dude reading the paper.
For a moment we all just look up and at each other. I'd never felt the subway just slide still, never seen this bank of lights. After a minute or two, the conductor spoke over the speaker system and said the line had lost power and we'd be detained a minute. Several more minutes passed and, though we were sitting in total bright light, the air conditioning had conked out and it takes no time for a subway car on a blistering August day to get very hot. The bearded dude with the big biceps stoop up, flashed a badge and said, "NYPD. Sit tight and I'll find out what's going on."
As he left the conductor spoke again telling us that we were in a citywide blackout and evacuation proceedings were about to begin. The crackle of his microphone had hardly stopped when another voice came over the speaker and announced that the entire Eastern Seaboard was without power. Everyone looked up with that apprehensive echo behind their eyes that thinks but does not say "terrorism?". I had been in the subway when the first plane hit, on the street when the second decimated the north tower and so many lives. There was an eerie ominousness about it.
The bearded muscled dude returned with another man and they told us the train was being evacuated from back to front because passengers were being walked back to the 137th stop we had just left. It was closer than the 145th stop where we were headed. He disappeared, taking the woman with the baby with him. We were, by the way, the very front car, so our rescue was going to wait a bit.
To the credit of the NYPD, the MTA, the whomever, we sat in the increasing but tolerable heat for about an hour when bearded biceped dude returns with a couple of other guys and says, "This is the drill. We're going to walk you through the train all the way to the back car. Then we will lift you to the tracks, where you will walk single file back to 137th Street. You will be lifted again over the third rail, then led out of the subway station via an escape exit to the street. Be extremely careful, since the power could return at any time and the third rail is deadly."
No pressure there!
So that is what we did. It seemed like a group adventure and, of course, the auxiliary lighting in the train was great. We laughed. Joked. Had each other's backs. Then we got to end of the car and the reality of it set in. At the end of the train there was nothing but void. Utter black. I saw a flashlight dip from the back platform to the track and someone a few people in front of me was whooshed away. The next. The next. My turn came. Nothing ahead but black, then suddenly a flashlight on me, then on the platform floor, then it moved to the pathway by the track and two arms picked me up and set me down in a heartbeat in the middle of the subway tracks. A voice said "put you hand on my back and follow me". I did. Every several feet a flashlight would sweep across the track in front of us and I could see a snakeline of folks - or the silhouettes of folks - in front of me. Community is nice.
Eventually things slowed and I could hear voices and laughs and moans and objections a few feet ahead. In a minute a flashlight shone on the face of a young, humpy man who said, "NYPD. I'm going to bucket lift you and hand you over the third rail to my buddy". No prob with me. So, in the near dark, this guy picks me up like he's Richard Gere and I'm Debra Winger ( I didn't reach for his hat) and deposits me in the arms of some other enormous dude on the other side.
It was all roses from there. Someone else showed up and led a group of us to an escape stairwell with enough natural light coming from above (it was still completely light above ground) that we could navigate the stairs and suddenly I was in the chaos of 137th and Broadway.
So, that was it. David eventually found his way home. He had walked from 23rd to 107th and had no intention of heading further. We were able to talk on the phone because we both had land lines and they worked in the blackout. So I spent the night huddled with the radio, listening to updates, causes, warnings about looters. And about 5am, with a tiny whir, every light in the apartment came on.
That was it. No drama. And, I think I am glad to know that the MTA has a plan. And that the bearded muscled dude reading the paper might be the one who is going to lead you out of a jam.
