On Saturday, August 16, 2003, at 04:20 PM, Ann Sanfedele wrote:
Amita Guha wrote:I was in an elevator. Yep.
So how did everyone fare in the blackout?
Fortunately, the elevator was hooked into the building's backup generator. The lights went out, but the elevator kept moving. I had walked over to one of my company's other buildings for a going away party for our summer interns, so I thought it was just the one building at first. Soon thereafter I learned that a large chunk of the middlewest and northeast was out. That was a bit frightening.
I drove home at about five. The drive that normally takes about five minutes (hey, life in Detroit is easy. I did the 90 minute commute from NY, NY for a dozen years) took about 40 minutes. People don't know how to drive when the stoplights don't work. Once I was home, I fired up my generator. I have a cheapo 5000 watt unit that I bought for $150. I just turn off my main circuit breaker and plug the generator into a wall outlet with an extension cord that has two mail plugs. It runs about half the circuits in my house. So we had television, a compute, and a small refrigerator in service. Our water pressure disappeared immediately, since the pumping stations had no power.
I couldn't take a shower on Friday morning, so I skipped my three mile run and went to work. Our buildings were all closed. But I had a meeting in the parking lot with some clients. I always feel like shit when I don't run, so I ran when I got home. I figured I'd rather smell bad than feel bad. After that I drove north to areas where the power was still on. I didn't have enough fuel to keep my generator running, so I wanted to get some more. The first half dozen gas stations had lines at least two miles long. That looked like six hours or more, so I kept driving. I eventually found one with two lines. The principal line was about a mile long, and it was a right turn into the station. But there was another line in the middle of the street about ten cars long that was making a left turn into the station. I hung in there and was able to fill five gas cans.
So we had power Friday afternoon. My wife, a couple of my kids, and I watched Gangs of New York and another movie that was so forgettable that I've already forgotten what it was. At about 4PM my oldest daughter came home and said that all the street lights were on. I turned off the generator, switched the main circuit back on, and cranked up the AC.
To make a long story even longer, I should add that this was Dream Cruise weekend in the Motor City. That's the weekend that we celebrate what we do here: make cars. And we celebrate it by cruising our main thoroughfare in classic cars and hot rods. The event draws about 50,000 cars and two million spectators. So after dinner, we took our 55 BelAir Convertible out on Woodward for the cruise. It was a great evening. Nice weather. Lots of happy people and plenty of electricity. Life goes on.
