Heading Uptown on 8th Avenue, after the power outage.

I suppose this will go down as one of those questions: "Where were you when the power went out?" Perhaps nowhere else in the country would a total power outage cause as many problems as it would in Manhattan. I was in Amtrak's Pennsylvania Station, just about to board a train to D.C., where I was to spend the weekend. All of a sudden everything went pitch black. Surprisingly there was almost no reaction by the crowd. Certainly no panic. Soon, the emergency lights came on, and we started waiting and wondering. And sweating, of course. Could it be a terrorist attack?

It was one of the muggiest days of the year so far, and without air-conditioning the air was fast becoming stale, hot and heavy. Before long, it became apparent that no trains would be heading out anytime soon, so I called my company's emergency travel line, and got them to book me a rental car across the street. And I called Amtrak to cancel my ticket, which I'd fortunately bought online with a credit-card. I'd been chatting to a young couple who were heading back to Philly, and I decided to offer them a lift to Philly. So we took off together for the Hertz rental place across 34th Street.

Once we were outside, the scale of the event started to become apparent. All of the nearby office buildings had emptied out onto the streets, and traffic had ground to a complete halt because of people crowding between cars. Down in the Hertz garage, there was chaos too. The poor girl in the rental office was almost in tears as angry businessmen demanded that she somehow rent them cars without access to computers. I hung around a while longer, trying to figure out my options, before finally realizing that I'd better head back to my apartment and make sure I had food, water, and candles.

I guess I was a little worried about the prospect of being in the dark streets after sundown. Even heading up 8th Avenue towards home, there was the clear scent of danger in the streets. The worst part was outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where the crowds almost blocked 8th Avenue, and traffic driving West from Times Square somehow tried to push through. People were getting out of their cars to argue with other drivers who wouldn't let them through, and pedestrians tried to squeeze through narrow gaps between vehicles. I waited at the start of a gap between two cars to let two guys through, then, somebody else entered the from the far end, eventhough I'd clearly been waiting first. I surprisingly found myself pushing him out of the way, telling him to wait his turn. The law of the streets was apparently taking over.

My luggage was extremely heavy, and I was soaking wet by the time I reached my apartment building in the mid-50s. And, for the first time, I was glad that I was only on the eleventh floor. I'm going to make holy war to the building management on Monday, because the first ten floors of the stairway had no working emergency lights. I clung to the guardrail, navigating the difficult sections by the light from the monitor on my digital camera. Once in my apartment, even though I'd only been in the stairway for ten minutes, the light flooding in from the windows seemed heavenly.

Over the next hour, I made a couple of trips downstairs again, to get food, and then to get batteries for the CD-radio in my apartment. I'd been unable to get a flashlight, so I'd been using my Itty-Bitty-Booklight, a little gizmo I bought years ago, but have never found very useful, until just now. The emergency was bringing out the humanity of New Yorkers. Everybody greeted each other on the trek up and down the dark stairwell, and on both my trips back upstairs, I helped light the way for families looking for an escort upstairs.

Of course, I had it easy. I feel bad for the people who'd checked out of hotels and had nowhere to go, or people who lived outside the city. Worst of all, people trapped in elevators and in the subway. That must have been hell. Even for me, it could have been much worse. The Amtrak trains use electric power from overhead power-lines, and I could well have been miles out of the city, in the middle of nowhere, when the power went out.

This is about the best my digital camera could do at capturing the darkness of the early evening. The lights in the building opposite are dim emergency lights, which only appear bright because I increased the contrast so much in the photo.

Once it was completely dark outside, I ventured out. It was eerie to walk down Manhattan streets which were so dark that you could at times almost walk into someone without seeing them. If there were any open manholes tonight, I didn't want to be around them. There were plenty of people out and about, many of them drinking, and there were already empty beer bottles and cans lying around. Lots of people had formed spontaneous building parties out on the sidewalks, complete with candles and somebody strumming a guitar. It was sexy to see quite a few guys walking around with their shirts off, something you rarely see in the streets of Manhattan.

Now I'm home again, and ready to go to bed. My apartment is plenty hot and stuffy, but not too bad, all things considered. I just hope I wake up to a city that has electricity again, and that I can resume my trip to D.C. for the weekend.

New York City, Fri, Aug 15, 2003, 2:27 PM

I slept fitfully. Without the constant grind of the air-conditioning, I could hear every street noise, particularly the whooping sirens of emergency vehicles which responded to four times the number of normal incidents last night. When I finally got up, past ten, there was still no power, though I heard on the radio that Midtown had some power. Mine returned finally shortly after noon. Unable to get a line either on my cell phone or the landline, I walked back down to Penn Station. It was amazing how incredibly normal the day felt. Everything seemed open, people were on the streets. But below Times Square, the power was still out, and along the normally crowded 34th Street between 7th Avenue and Broadway, there were hardly any pedestrians. The empty streets siding Macys looked for once like most American downtowns on the weekend - deserted.

Penn Station was still not air-conditioned, and was pretty horrible. All the ticketing machines were down, though I'd heard Amtrak was no operating to DC. So I went outside and called Amtrak, using their automated system to book a seat on the 4.30 Metroliner. Now I just have to pack and hope that I can somehow get on the train. Here's hoping.