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Great Eastern Blackout of 2003.

Sld1959

Sld1959

Ronin
Was watching a show on National Geographic Explorer about a fictitious nation wide blackout. Not bad, it was done by clips of supposed news cuts and cell phone videos. Have not watched it all but I think it did a fair job so far of portraying the sudden confusion, the fear, the denial, the situations people ended up in. Rather reminded me of the big Eastern Blackout of 2003, which will be 20 years ago in August. Anyone else live thru it? Did you learn any lessons from it.

I remember it occurred round 4 pm on a Thursday and we were without power for 3 full days. While not the magnatude or duration of something like a direct hit from a hurricane, it was without warning and there was absolutely no preparation. And people were caught in some rather nasty situations totally unprepared. And those at home found out just how poorly they were prepared.

We had just moved to a new area and did not have a generator. I had just started freelancing so I was home and my wife at work on afternoons I had driven her to work. The next few days I drove her around to work and back. It was an interesting few days.

Learned or had reinfirced a few things. Just off the top of my head.

Learned you really need less far less light to live by than we are used to.

Learned that solar powered driveway lights make great indoor lanterns. Simply bring them in and stick them in glasses or between seat cushions.

Learned that our pantry was handy and that it's nice to have a gas stove top. It was nice to cook indoor still, but our grill was nice too. We had plenty of meat to cook up. Ice went very fast between stores being closed and people buying.

Learned that it's smart to have lower powered long lasting led lights in addition to the big bad bright jobs. Battery life is critical when stock piles are limited.

Learned to have a decent amount of spare batteries and rechargeable batteries with solar chargers.

Learned that headlamps are great tools. Simply by coincidence I had been in a Target that morning, at one time they had the best flashlight selection. They had led headlamps on special two for one, so I bought two. Pat just so happened to take one with her to work and she was the only person there who was able to perform somewhat normally. And things like reading a book were greatly enhanced.

Also learned, always knew, predators really love the dark, knew several people that had negative encounters and news reports were not pleasant.

Learned to try very hard to never let the vehicles get below 3/4s, and make each trip matter for multiple stops. There was one station in the area with a generator and was selling gas, lines were long and amounts were limited and were gone the first day.

Just a few things.
 
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During the "warmer" time of the year a small portable generator can power your frig & freezer, and a Goal Zero/other equivalents power station(s) can give you some lights at night if you can get by without a whole-house back-up generator/battery system.
 
Around the same timeframe and new resident in a nice, old growth wooded neighborhood in the big city, had experienced a 3 day power outage due to a “micro-burst” type storm. This locally storm struck fast and unpredicted, caused so many downed trees, flooding and fully fried a substation.

After a full day into night w/o power and an estimated 3 day return to service from the power company, I went to the hardware store and bought the very last generator on the shelf…a Honda 2500 watt/20a, just enough to continually power a fridge, a box fan, tv or two, computer, WiFi and a couple lamps.

We don't get many regular outages here and the utility usually addresses outages in a matter of hours, so a permanent type of Generac generator was too much. I guess I could still add a transfer switch but Id like a larger portable generator so circuits wouldn’t be limited to certain rooms.

Next on the home survival list came rechargeable LED lanterns and flashlights, swivel heads and magnetic bottoms, also headlamps!
Propane tanks - always maintaining two full 20 lb’ers.
Tru-Fuel synthetic gas for the generator, I keep at least 6 quart cans at ready just in case, this stuff has a long shelf life.
And if you get a generator, have plenty of rated extension cords to reach whenever you’re powering. Lucky for me the max distance was only 20ft with a 12ga cord.

Oh, and a long 1/2” dia. steel eyelet running thru a garage wall to anchor the generator with a chain/cable - I live in the city and don’t take chances !
 
Area52 said:
Around the same timeframe and new resident in a nice, old growth wooded neighborhood in the big city, had experienced a 3 day power outage due to a “micro-burst” type storm. This locally storm struck fast and unpredicted, caused so many downed trees, flooding and fully fried a substation.

After a full day into night w/o power and an estimated 3 day return to service from the power company, I went to the hardware store and bought the very last generator on the shelf…a Honda 2500 watt/20a, just enough to continually power a fridge, a box fan, tv or two, computer, WiFi and a couple lamps.

We don't get many regular outages here and the utility usually addresses outages in a matter of hours, so a permanent type of Generac generator was too much. I guess I could still add a transfer switch but Id like a larger portable generator so circuits wouldn’t be limited to certain rooms.

Next on the home survival list came rechargeable LED lanterns and flashlights, swivel heads and magnetic bottoms, also headlamps!
Propane tanks - always maintaining two full 20 lb’ers.
Tru-Fuel synthetic gas for the generator, I keep at least 6 quart cans at ready just in case, this stuff has a long shelf life.
And if you get a generator, have plenty of rated extension cords to reach whenever you’re powering. Lucky for me the max distance was only 20ft with a 12ga cord.

Oh, and a long 1/2” dia. steel eyelet running thru a garage wall to anchor the generator with a chain/cable - I live in the city and don’t take chances !
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That was one of the kick in the jewels of this store most stores were simply closed due to no generators, those that had them sold out in hours and there was nothing around. It was the entire state and a good part of the east.
 
Sitting here remembering it, it was a hot SOB of a weekend. Which of course helped with tempers and amount of outside traffic at night.

I remember going to pick up pat at the nursing home it was pitch black right in the edge if one of the cities worse areas. The door to the employee parking lot was in back and while sitting there in darkness I heard rustling. I lit the area up with my flashlight and there was a scruffy looking guy, who knows what his plan was but I got out of the car and said he would be better off moving on. He moved away. About ten minutes later from another direction I heard a rustle and once again I lit up the same guy sneeking back in my direction this time. I put my hand by my handgun without drawing and advised him he might wish to reconsider his options. He obviously knew I was armed and he left and was not seen there again to my knowledge.

And yes I stayed there each night until all the girls were safely in thier cars and left the parking lot.
 
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Bassbob said:
I have a few generators laying around.
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So do I now, but didn't then. But, there was a lesson there to be learned by many too. Fuel for generators, many people for some reason keep little on hand in summer. Many I remember talking to had a 2 or 3 gallon can which they shared with a lawn mower, filled partly to varying degrees. And as I mentioned open gas stations were rare.
 
I remember it well. I was on my way home from work in Manhattan and Got stuck on the F Train somewhere between Battery Park and Red Hook, Brooklyn. Packed train. Had to pry the doors open and walk the pitch black tracks for what felt like 34324 miles before we saw the next station and a glimmer of daylight. One of the few times I ever really felt unsafe in my city. Only comfort was knowing there were roughly 100 or so people with me stuck in the same situation.

People always assume NY'ers are just mean assholes but really we help each other out when it matters most. I remember hooking up with some kids from neighborhood as soon as I got back and we all ran to the beer distributor and bought as many kegs as we could with whatever we could scrape together (Couldn't get cash out of the ATM) and threw a huge ass keg party on the beach that night. 2003 was my graduating year hahahah. Dude didn't even card us.

Dude sold us about 4 of them for $40/ea because they were just gonna go bad and he wanted to get rid of them for something. Didn't even take a deposit for the kegs themselves haha.

Man that was a wild few days.
 
Bassbob said:
We've never had a blackout around here in my lifetime. There were a few times when ice storms took out the electric for a few days or a week.
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Same basically around here. Only blackout we generally have had are ice storms. That's why this was so rare, unusual, and memorable. It was a cascading grid failure no one had ever heard about before.
 
ddeuce22 said:
I remember it well. I was on my way home from work in Manhattan and Got stuck on the F Train somewhere between Battery Park and Red Hook, Brooklyn. Packed train. Had to pry the doors open and walk the pitch black tracks for what felt like 34324 miles before we saw the next station and a glimmer of daylight. One of the few times I ever really felt unsafe in my city. Only comfort was knowing there were roughly 100 or so people with me stuck in the same situation.

People always assume NY'ers are just mean assholes but really we help each other out when it matters most. I remember hooking up with some kids from neighborhood as soon as I got back and we all ran to the beer distributor and bought as many kegs as we could with whatever we could scrape together (Couldn't get cash out of the ATM) and threw a huge ass keg party on the beach that night. 2003 was my graduating year hahahah. Dude didn't even card us.

Dude sold us about 4 of them for $40/ea because they were just gonna go bad and he wanted to get rid of them for something. Didn't even take a deposit for the kegs themselves haha.

Man that was a wild few days.
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Yeah a lot of people ended up in some potentionaly bad situations. Lucky yours turned out good and lots of fun.

Most of us do not think of the places like subways and elevators as dangerous places until the unthinkable happens and we are stuck alone in the dark in and perhaps, as in an elevator maybe no one at all knows where you are and to come help.

At that time very few cell phone towers had battery backups and just died. Our daughter was in college and had no landlines phone, we were unable to get in touch with her until she got access to one. Do cell towers have backups now, I am not entirely sure if most do or not.

Imagine being by yourself in an increasingly hot elevator on a 90 degree day, no one knows you are in, no phone, elevator phone not working, no water, for up to three days possibly, maybe longer. And for a lot of people they are in elevators or subway or even a dark building dozens of times a day, just part of life they cannot avoid nor truly prepare for if something did happen. Luck of the draw when something does happen.

I remember probably 10 years before the blackout I was by myself way in the back of a windowless factory. Up on a lift running computer cables setting up a new business when the power went out from a car accident. I had to figure a way down in pitch black with no emergency lighting. Then I had to work my way out, tripping and falling a dozen times in the black. I was lucky, I stopped and lit a smoke with like my last match just before falling into a loading dock.

I learned to always carry a small flashlight in my pocket that day. Which helped when the big blackout happened.
 
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Sld1959 said:
Um going by memory, Most of Canada, Michigan, Maine New Hampshire most of northeast US I think. Like everything certain places had it worse and last longer than others. According to this article it was at the time the second largest blackout in history.

en.m.wikipedia.org

Northeast blackout of 2003 - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
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that is entirely too funny...

RI was NOT affected (according to the map...lol...lol)

in 2003 i was running the road/north/south on the I-95 corridor, or, east/west from RI to Newburgh, NY, so i'd have not been affected by that black out, as i already was running nightly. then too, it was on the weekend, so i would have returned home early in the morning on saturday, like about 6 AM.......no wonder i have no recollection of this
 
Old_Me said:
that is entirely too funny...

RI was NOT affected (according to the map...lol...lol)

in 2003 i was running the road/north/south on the I-95 corridor, or, east/west from RI to Newburgh, NY, so i'd have not been affected by that black out, as i already was running nightly. then too, it was on the weekend, so i would have returned home early in the morning on saturday, like about 6 AM.......no wonder i have no recollection of this
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Yes, if you were not affected likely it was just another news story for a short time.
 
Another lesson a lot of people learned was to keep cash on hand. Few stores were open but the ones that were it was strictly a cash only deal. If it happened today a lot of people might be hurting. My nephew and several others I know have told me numerous times that I am the only person they know who carries and uses cash. I find this to be simply amazing, and I keep extra hand.
 
Sld1959 said:
Another lesson a lot of people learned was to keep cash on hand. Few stores were open but the ones that were it was strictly a cash only deal. If it happened today a lot of people might be hurting. My nephew and several others I know have told me numerous times that I am the only person they know who carries and uses cash. I find this to be simply amazing, and I keep extra hand.
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You are 100% correct. Here in Ohio we have delt with that issue several times. Cash is king when all banks ,atm's gas stations the list goes on.
 
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