It's Friday, and I just got the power back 10 minutes ago. Parts of the city
have had power for a while. I did my usual walk up to Central Park at 11am and
there was no power until I got to 6th ave, but they had power (and A/C in the
stores) all the way up to central park. On my way out of the park (72nd st),
there was power on 5th ave, madison, park ave, lexignton, down to 51st st
(except a couple blocks in the middle). So, from 51st down well past 41st where
I am, there was no power from 4:10pm Thursday until 2:07 pm Friday.
I was online when the power went out, but didn't even notice except that my A/C
started making noise. I shut the a/c off then noticed that the bathroom lights
were glowing dark orange, so I figured the power was on its way out. It took
about 10 minutes before I saw any online news about the outage. I was impressed
that Verizon didn't even drop or glitch my dial-up connection. I stayed on for
about an hour and a half doing my usual work, but then powered down to conserve
the notebook battery in case I needed it. They were saying that the power might
be back by midnight, so I logged on after 11pm, but my battery finally ran out a
bit after midnight as there was no power restored.
I went outside around 9pm to watch the show. People were driving east on 42nd st
and turning north on 1st ave (that's the corner where I am) to get to the 59th
st bridge. Or at least they were trying. Until some idiots thought they were
being clever by passing the stopped traffic on the other side of 42nd st (when
there was no traffic coming) and then causing gridlock when the buses on 1st ave
needed to turn on 42nd st. I watched this stupidity for a while and finally
walked down (my street is actually an overpass above 42nd st) and helped inform
the idiots that they needed to back up to let the traffic through. Everybody was
was very cooperative though. The cops didn't show up until after we had cleared
a lane for the buses to get through.
Telephones have been fine other than a little extra redialing needed (one redial
to make this connection). Their system runs just like my notebook computer,
except that the batteries are a bit bigger. I would not have known that the
power had gone off if my a/c hadn't been on. And as we're all aware, we
shouldn't be using a/c all the time anyway.
A spare battery (or two) for my PC would have helped a lot.
It will take a little while to get water... the tank on the roof was emptied and
the same for the hot water which needs to be heated as well.
I've got the A/C back on... even though we're not supposed to.
One remaining problem: how to mail my extended income tax which needs to be
filed today (8/15). The local post office is closed. I'm not sure if any of them
are open, or where. Late breaking news: the IRS announced a 1-week
extension.
Overall, it was a fairly amusing experience, but I'm glad the whole thing is
over. The good news is that it highlights a ton of issues that the power guys
should have been addressing over the years. It probably also means that a lot
more money can be allocated to do needed system upgrades that have slipped by
over the years.
Late Friday evening and finally the hot water is back.
Please contact us with any questions or comments.
Updated: January 30, 2006 08:29:40 PM -0500
Copyright © 2002 John W. Krupansky d/b/a Base Technology