It’s been 23 years ago since the 2003 blackout. Crazy. I remember being asleep like I usually am during major events. I got a call on my landline from my Louisiana friend Andrea Jarmon wondering how my roomie Ray and I were doing in Jersey city. I had no idea what had happened. I said I was about to go to rehearsal in the city and she said no you’re not lol. She brought me up to speed on the blackout. My Nokia phone was dead and it was pretty crazy outside around journal square where we lived. So I got into my purple dodge neon and drove to electricity which I found at exit 11 on the turnpike. I remember all tolls were free. It was wild driving back and seeing a dark nyc skyline. #blackout
Below is by New York Transit Museum:
A cascade of power failures in the Midwest triggered North America’s biggest ever blackout, affecting more than 50 million people. With no advance warning, #NYC was thrust into transit chaos, and it happened just as the evening commute was beginning.
Electric-powered railroads and subways stopped. Without these vital systems, commuters turned to gas-powered vehicles, but traffic lights at the city’s 11,600 intersections were dark. Buses were overcrowded and cars were gridlocked. Many found their own two feet to be the most reliable form of transportation and pedestrians streamed across bridges to get to other boroughs.
It took 29 hours to restore electricity, but, remarkably, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority – MTA had the #NYCsubway up and running only 9 hours after that.
akintsucrooner 