I was in New York City from Tuesday evening until Saturday midday, including the period of the 2003 blackout. When the power went off, around 4:10 pm on Thursday, I was on a subway train going across the Manhattan Bridge. We were stranded there for over 90 minutes before the train was evacuated. After that, Brandi and I walked for two hours to reach our midtown hotel, and then climbed the dark stairway to our room on the 14th floor.

Stranded train on Manhattan Bridge (after evacuation)

[Note: All images are thumbnails, and can be clicked to see at full-size.]

BEFORE THE BLACKOUT

My friends Matt and Brandi had a hotel room in midtown NYC for the week. Matt was in NYC for a work-related training program, and they invited me to stay with them from Tuesday until Thursday. It was intended as a low-key stay, making use of the hotel as a base for exploring NYC with Brandi during the daytime, and all three of us having social time together in the evenings. And at first, it worked out that way.

The air quality was terrible on Tue and Wed, with oppressive humidity, heat and smog making it difficult to breathe. This was much worse than usual -- I can't recall NYC being so bad before -- and limited how much we could actually do outdoors at midday. Brandi and I walked around midtown on Wednesday, then she napped and I decided to explore from aboard the subways (air conditioning!). I rode out to Queens on the #7, a line I've been told has good views as it's mostly on aerial track above the level of the buildings.

The evenings were much more pleasant. All three of us explored Central Park on Tuesday evening, then took the Staten Island ferry. We rode at the front of the boat each way, and the feeling of ocean air rushing past was wonderful. In Staten Island we found a quiet little pier and watched the water and city for awhile. Then on Wednesday evening, we went shopping around East Village and walked through Times Square. I've never been there at night -- over-the-top advertising in a way that left me in stunned silence, it felt like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Thursday began with great promise. The humidity was falling, the air was clearing, and we looked forward to a normal day. Since I wanted to get at least one full day of good weather, and I didn't want to stay longer than invited at the hotel, I made arrangements to stay with friends that night and leave for Boston in the morning. Brandi and I went to the Statue of Liberty, had lunch at a wonderful diner we found randomly in Brooklyn, and then went to the Botanic Gardens. By the time we left, I was down to my last few digital camera photographs on my 64 MB card.

We went to Prospect Park station on the Q, intending to transfer at 14 St / Union Square to the #6, arriving at the midtown hotel near the 51 St station between 4:30 and 5:00 to meet Matt for dinner. We didn't get there until after 7:30 pm.

STUCK ON THE SUBWAY

When the power went off, Brandi and I were aboard a Q subway train crossing the Manhattan Bridge (which goes over the East River between Brooklyn and Manhattan). The train made an abrupt stop. I'm used to trains stopping in random places due to traffic ahead, but this felt sudden in a way that caught my attention. We were stopped on the descending part of the bridge, just across the Manhattan shoreline.

At first, we were told that the signals had gone out. I can't remember if we were told this over the public address system, or simply overheard a conductor's conversation over a walkie-talkie. Either way, that explained the sudden stop, and we expected that the train would be moving shortly.

Sean and Brandi on the train

A few minutes later, we heard that power was out throughout the city. I think we learned this from a train conductor explaining the signal problem. This is when everyone realized that this was a serious incident, and we wouldn't be going anywhere soon. The general response was "what now?", with the unspoken subtext that we might have to evacuate the train -- unbelievable, but more believable than not evacuating.

The conductor moved through the train opening small side windows, which created some ventilation.

Fortunately, we were above ground, in full sunlight. My impression was that the train car had some emergency power for lighting, but that wasn't important with sunlight streaming through the windows. My impression is that this contributed greatly to the emotional stability of the passengers during the early period on the train.

Of course, people considered the possibility that this was a terrorist incident. But in general, people were not concerned with the explanation, they were focused on how to respond to the specific problem of being stuck on the bridge.

Many people had cellphones. The cell system was understandably overloaded by the fact that everyone in New York City wanted to make calls at exactly the same time, but some fraction of calls were going through. That gave an essential way to get news from the outside world.

Stuck on the Q train

At some point, someone with a cellphone said that the blackout extended all the way to Chicago. I felt that this created the first sense of real shock from the passengers. A problem of such magnitude was incomprehensible, it just doesn't happen! (The report proved to be technically inaccurate -- it extended only to Michigan -- but the essence of the report was correct, this was a national event.)

Using Brandi's cellphone, I managed to get a call through to my parents in Florida. They had not heard about the blackout, so I told them that I was stuck on the subway crossing the Manhattan Bridge, but was in good shape. I asked them to check the Internet for current news, so they went to the Drudge Report and read me the headlines: a long list of affected regions. As cities were listed, I said them out loud for Brandi -- New York City, Detroit, Cleveland, Toronto, etc. I also managed to get a call out to Tamara in Boston at 4:50 pm, who said that there were no power problems there.

Neither Brandi nor I was able to reach Matt, and I later had problems reaching other cellphones in NYC. I suspect that long-distance calls were easier because a local cellphone-to-cellphone call required two cell links -- one outbound, and another to the receiving handset. That would essentially square the low probability of getting a connection.

I wandered around the train car, carefully noting the trackbed layout to be prepared for an evacuation. There was a pair of tracks, and we were on the downtown track (north side). Bridge supports were immediately north of the trackbed, with a gap of perhaps two feet, then a roadway. To the south, we could see the other track, a fence, and then a pedestrian walkway.

Pedestrian walkway & Manhattan, from windows of stranded train

There appeared to be a narrow but passable walkway on each side, between the rails and the bridge supports. But it would only be reachable from the front and back of the train, because the train car overhang obstructed this walkway area along the length of the train. (This isn't how we eventually evacuated, so I don't know if my interpretation of the walkway is correct.)

Meanwhile, my camera batteries went dead, and my camera card was filled up. I had expected the Botanic Gardens would be my last intensive photo session during my trip to NYC, and had taken the rest of my pictures there. I didn't have much battery power left for going back and choosing images to delete. So fortunately I was able to borrow Brandi's batteries and camera card to continue taking photographs during the blackout.

We were seeing pedestrians flowing across the bridge outside our windows. The stream started with the pedestrian walkway, but later spread to the roadway as apparently it had been closed to cars. After 9/11, I had tried to imagine what it was like for the population of Manhattan to leave on foot for the other boroughs; now it was happening right outside these windows. So that triggered some flashback memories. (I was in Newburyport MA at the time of 9/11, and only saw the events on television.)

At some point between 4:30 and 5:15, I can't recall when, the conductor moved through the train opening all doors between cars, and bringing a torrent of people in his wake. Apparently he was redistributing the passenger load to make the number of riders more even. Our car had 15 passengers when the power went off, but this roughly doubled with the new influx from the back of the train.

After about hour on the train, people started getting restless. It was getting hot. Once people started moving between train cars, the idea of doing something about being stuck seemed natural. Before then, we were just sitting still and waiting it out.

Some people went to the gap between train cars to get a cross-breeze. I went there to look out more carefully at the trackbed, and to look down (city streets were somewhat visible far below, but the bridge structure was substantial enough to seem somewhat ground-like). Then some people started smoking at this open-air gap between cars, which made our car rather smelly, so Brandi and I started wandering through the length of the train.

The gap between the train cars, and the view south across tracks

People were asking the conductors (there were two for the train) about evacuation plans, and they said to just wait. But some were not going to sit quietly, and started climbing out between cars to the trackbed, and then climbing across the two-foot gap to the structure forming the roadway wall, and from there dropping down to the pavement on the bridge. I think this started before the roadway was completely closed to traffic, I recall seeing people running across the roadway apparently from the train before it was evident how they were escaping.

With time, this trickle became a torrent. The conductors tried to stop them, but it seemed to just start again somewhere else. Eventually someone disconnected one of the cables between train cars, to create a clearer path for people climbing over the side. When a conductor discovered this, he became very upset and said that it could have caused a major accident if the power came back. He responded by closing the doors between cars, and then actually locked some of these doors.

Only a small fraction of passengers had been involved in these prohibited escapes. But very many people became furious when the doors were locked -- it created a sense of claustrophobia, the main source of cooling air was lost, and there would be no way to escape in a real emergency. It was like being locked in a car that was slowly warming, with no way of contacting anyone for help, and no idea of how long we would be stuck inside.

At this point, I felt that there was a tone of mutiny. The train doors somehow started becoming unlocked, probably the conductors changed their minds, perhaps one of the passengers promised to oversee the door and ensure no unauthorized escapes.

There were some rumors of official escape plans. People started drifting around, following anyone who seemed to know where they were going. At some point, the public address system was used to tell everyone to go to the front of the train; this caused a mass migration. But on getting towards the front, the other conductor said that they were letting people off in the other direction. This led to a collision, where people in front were trying to get to the back, and people in the back hadn't heard the update and were trying to move forward. Eventually the flow reversed.

As we approached the back of the train, we found that people were being let out a side door, one at a time. A van was parked on the roadway, and a ramp had been constructed (out of plywood?) to get people from the train door across the two-foot gap, the roadway barrier and over the pavement. I watched for awhile out the side of the adjacent car before the crowd thinned enough for me to move forward into the evacuation car.

Building the escape ramp

The conductors were on each side of the door, letting people through while the ramp appeared stable, then stopping people until those people had gotten down. I was the first in a small group to cross, and it felt much more unstable than I expected. There were people (perhaps MTA employees, but I think mostly random pedestrians or former train passengers) helping hold people's hands for extra stability. Then I jumped off to the pavement.

The time was about 5:50 pm.

WALKING NORTH

Once I was off, I went across the flow of pedestrians leaving Manhattan to a small alcove around construction equipment where I could watch people being evacuated from the train. For a couple of minutes, I didn't have any desire to go anywhere -- I was on free ground, I was letting the adrenaline settle down from the escape process, and now I wanted to see the train, really let it sink in that I had been trapped there for over 90 minutes, so I'd remember.

Passengers evacuating the train

Stranded train on Manhattan Bridge (after evacuation)

Pedestrians on the Manhattan Bridge

Brandi was anxious about Matt, so I let myself get pulled away. We were going counter-flow, walking towards Manhattan while most people were leaving. As we got off the bridge, we started walking north on Chrystie St, then 2nd Avenue. The traffic lights, of course, were all out. In my experience, people often think a dead traffic light means "green in all directions", so I was expecting utter havoc in the streets. But it wasn't like that, at all. There was an orderly flow of cars going south on the avenues (north-south roads), and when they were blocked with cars in the next block, cars would slip across on the streets (east-west roads). Without any traffic control, traffic seemed to move in an orderly and rational manner.

At major intersections, ordinary people were trying to help direct traffic. Sometimes one to an intersection, sometimes several. There was a real sense of community, of being in it together, of doing one's part to help the mass of humanity continue civilization through the blackout.

Major street corner without signals

This led me to think somewhat about the nature of community life in large cities. Some time back, I had a conversation with people visiting from rural Utah about the city culture. They were noting the apparent coldness, the lack of acknowledgement from strangers. I observed that it was actually a form of kindness towards strangers, a respect for the need for their personal space, even when physically proximate. There is a sense of "I know you're there, I'm considerate of you, so I will let you go about your life in undisturbed peace, and not intrude". In the blackout, this phenomenon felt evident to me, in a new form. Now it was expressed in a collective sense of community, a quiet acceptance of new rules to help everyone do what they needed, and doing what's needed to help others when such circumstances arise. Everyone was courteous.

(I've been told that there are places where people weren't courteous -- especially with trying to squeeze onto the ferries to New Jersey, or trapped underground in the subway trying to get out. But I feel these are the exceptions where circumstances led to panic, or where resources were simply too small for anyone to get what they needed without being overly assertive. Those circumstances usually tip the scales away from civilized behavior, but in my experience it was very rare.)

I feel that the overall psychology of New York City, during the blackout, was significantly shaped by the experience of 9/11. People had already gone through a tragedy and disruption of far greater magnitude, and at some level the city was staying prepared for a possible future event. The fact that this was an ordinary problem, albeit of great magnitude, made it feel kind of acceptable. There was a kind of "we can pull through" mindset that I feel was a therapeutic reflection of having endured 9/11, and staying ready to go through it all again.

Somewhere around 20th St, I realized the city busses were running (albeit almost motionless and quite full). As a protective measure in case one of us eventually became unable to go on, we moved over to 3rd Ave, where there was a bus line going to the hotel. The walking seemed easier on 3rd Ave, so it was a good move regardless. Eventually we jogged over to Lexington, the avenue with the hotel, and finally made it home. The hotel was between 48th and 49th streets, so we had gone a distance of over three miles.

DARK NIGHT AT THE HOTEL

Once there, the hotel was in darkness. We ran into Matt in the lobby (fortunately!) and we were finally all together again. The utter exhaustion started to set in.

Standing in the darkness of the lobby, I started to think about conditions upstairs. The only light in our room would be sunlight through windows -- and since it was around 7:30 pm, that light was fading fast. If there was anything we needed to find -- food, water, phone numbers, battery-powered sources of illumination, etc -- it would need to be gathered and located quite soon.

With this in mind, we all went upstairs, and did the requisite re-organization. The hotel had posted employees every floor or two with flashlights, so there was some illumination, but I remember making some floors in the pitch-black by counting steps and feeling the handrails.

When we started looking at our electronics with a single-minded focus on illumination capacity, there were actually several sources of light available. I used my digital camera's viewscreen, Matt used his cellphone, and later in the night I used my CD player's LCD screen. I felt like someone who looks at a tree, realizes it has bark, and thinks "food!" Improvisation was needed throughout the blackout to deal with unexpected situations with a random collection of stuff.

We had some water, and some food. The water was out in the room, due to lack of pumping pressure. That meant getting a substantial supply of water was the first priority. Matt and I went out to try shopping. We passed an office tower with emergency power, which was giving out water in the lobby. We filled a bottle, and I drank the whole thing at once, replenishing from the dehydration of our long walk. We eventually found a little market that was doing business by candlelight, and got several bottles of water. We went back to the hotel, and I subsisted mostly on bread and (warming) cheese, and water. It felt like luxury.

A Manhattan market by candlelight

Over the evening, there were several trips up and down the stairs. I can't recall now what they were all about, and may be blending together my memories of several excursions. But once it was fully dark, we stayed in the room for the night.

Looking out the windows, Matt noticed that he could see stars. We identified the stars as three in the handle of the Big Dipper (the rest was obscured by buildings). Stars from NYC!

Stars from New York City (and one building with emergency power). Color speckles are CCD noise in the camera; the stars are white.

At midnight, they were going to sleep, and I seriously considered going downstairs so I could see stars from the streets of Manhattan. But I decided not to go, because I felt that navigating the dark stairs was simply too dangerous, and I was utterly exhausted from all the exercise. It was time to sleep.

49 St & Lexington

Around 12:30 AM, I heard on my walkman radio that PATH trains were starting to run through the tunnel to New Jersey. Looking back on it, perhaps I should have walked to 33 St and taken the subway over to Jersey City, and seen the darkened NYC skyline over the Hudson River. That would have been quite an experience, and perhaps helped me understand the gravity of the blackout. But I reasoned that any outgoing subway capacity to New Jersey was needed for residents leaving the city, even at that hour, and decided against an excursion.

THE NEXT DAY

I woke early, at 7 am, and was feeling exploratory. So I went out, mostly looking for means of communications. I had noted that these were the main sources of trauma in the blackout, in order of severity: no subways, no Internet, no light. So I went out on foot to find Internet, and possibly some pizza.

Power had been restored overnight to part of NYC. The hotel was still without power, as was most of midtown and lower Manhattan. There was, however, an area with power between 5th Ave and Broadway. The restaurants in this area were quite busy, especially at the fringes, as they were attracting customers from a wide area with no sources of food. I did find pizza, and even a working ATM (the first one had a line of 26 people to one machine, but I kept looking and found a better ratio). But the Internet cafes I found were all in areas without power, and the libraries were all closed.

Brandi seemed to be coming down with a cold, so I brought back some cough drops from a street vendor. I also checked Matt's training center, four blocks away from the hotel, and found it had power. Around noon, I was back at the hotel. I had been navigating the dark hallways by touch, reading the room numbers by feel (the numbers were raised). But this time I misjudged something and suffered my one injury -- a bruise on my collarbone when I walked into a wall corner. I think the walls had a decorative bump-bump pattern at a turn, and I smashed into the second corner. There was a hotel employee by the stairs who had offered to walk to the room with a flashlight, but I'd turned that down because I felt the stairs were the source of real danger, and people should stay there with lights whenever possible.

Matt and Brandi were awake, so we went out. We tried Matt's training building, but found the building was still closed, and most restaurants weren't opening until late afternoon.

The subways were still down, except for one line -- PATH's train between 33rd St and New Jersey, via West Village. I found it amusing that the only working train in New York City would be PATH. But the city had the busses working, and with fewer people in town (most commuters stayed away) the busses were actually practical, even in the absence of subways.

The streets were quite empty, by Manhattan standards. None of the bustle and constant energy of an ordinary day. But there were still people everywhere.

Wondering about going back to Boston, we went down to Chinatown. The power was still completely out in that area, and I was impressed with the silence. In midtown, there were emergency generators in office towers causing a background hum or tone, and the street grid had a steady flow of traffic (if very light overnight and in the morning). But here, there was silence. There weren't even cars, as the streets were not quite as gridlike, or something. Many shops had vendors outside with goods, and there were some fire hydrants partly open where people would cool off. Matt said it felt like being in a small town.

We found that the intercity busses were still operating a normal schedule. At first it seemed sensible for Brandi and me to return to Boston that evening, but when we got back to the hotel (about 4 pm), we found that power had been restored. (It came back around 2:45 pm, for a blackout of over 22 hours.) Internet and phone service were still out, however.

We showered, and worshipped the lights.

Now that the problems of living in a dark hotel were over, Brandi decided that it would be better for her to stay (as she had originally planned) until Sunday. By now it was getting late, and I would have needed to hurry to get packed for the last bus connecting to the subway in Boston. I wasn't looking forward to carrying my luggage on the city busses, after walking so much for two days, and was able to make arrangements to stay that night with other friends in NYC. As I went out, the lights were clearly on in more places, although there were still dark areas in lower midtown.

RETURNING TO BOSTON

On Saturday I slept in until relatively late, made use of Internet for the first time in days, collected my luggage from the hotel, and came back to Boston. The power had never gone out here, and I could perceive the difference. There was none of the collective sense of togetherness, none of the sense that we were all recovering from a long ordeal, that characterized life in NYC. Everything was just, well, ordinary.