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Shoppers wait in line at Raskin's Fruit and Vegetable store in Crown Heights. Photo: CNN.

10 Years Ago Today: Where Were You During the Blackout of 2003?

About 50 million people lost power Aug. 14, 2003, when a tree branch in Ohio started an outage that cascaded across a broad swath from Michigan to New England and Canada.

Commuters in New York City and elsewhere had to sleep on steps, hitchhike or walk home as trains were rendered powerless and gas pumps stopped working; food spoiled as refrigerators and freezers thawed; jugs of water sold out as supply plants lost their ability to supply consumers; minds were set to wandering about terrorism fears less than two years after 9/11.

It’s now ten years later, Where were you during the blackout of 2003?

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18 Comments

  • chanie

    I was stuck in the elevator with my one year old. For about an hour. Then came Eliyohu Hanovi , broke the door open & pulled us out of there. We never saw him before, don’t know how he got to our building and then disappeared just as he came!
    Thank you Hashem for your help!!

  • Lucky

    Luckily I was upstate in Mountain Lodge and we barely had a blackout. We were the last ones to lose power and the first to get it back on.

  • Older but not wiser

    I tripped over something in the dark & broke my toe! My husband was stranded in California. My daughter was due to give birth & the heat was unbearable…it was a total nightmare! I can’t believe it was 10 years ago, it seems like yesterday. Like Chanie I’m 10 years older & if it happened again I still wouldn’t be prepared.

  • nyc

    I was in upper Manhattan, I had to walk home to ch, what an experience, crossing the bridge with thousands of people.

  • A camper

    In the 3 week program in oak park mi Detroit and we had the most amazing time like the 3 weeks knows how to do.
    We want on a shabbaton bec it happend on a Friday.

  • Joe

    In the airport, on the way home from YSP. I eventually got a flight at around midnight, but my grandmother, who had accompanied me to the airport, was stuck until the next day.

  • Ya

    In Six Flags. The power went out for a moment but they had their own generators, so life went on in Six Flags.

  • in the subway

    Feelling like rats, we though it’s another 09/11, between two stations ….

  • Mordechai Jacobson

    Working in downtown Brooklyn. I saw people sadly staring at their cars which were on lifts in lots and couldn’t be brought down to the ground due to no electricity.

  • 1st time bubby

    Was driving to Crown Heights for my first grandchild’s bris. 10 years and ka’h many grandchildren later!

  • This brings back memories!!

    Just landed,,,, with a newborn,,, lucky me I went up to departures,,, as I exited the elevator the electricity went,,, Hashem saved me,,, five min earlier and my luggage and carriage would not have come,,,the airport was a nightmare after that,,, they could not open or close planes, conveyor belts.. Etc,,,, lucky I cought a car service not a taxi running a meter,,,, it took 4 hours to get to c.h. Because there were no traffic lights and the roads were a mess,,,,, got home to a pitch dArk, hot apartment,,, my husband had work in monsey that day,,, could not get back,,,, b”h the lights returned close to Shabbos!!!!!

  • ARRIVED FROM FLORIDA

    I came in from Florida the next morning (electric still out). We were on the tarmac for about, not surprisingly, 30-45 minutes (surprised that was all). But the delays were primarily because the security were no fools. They opened all luggage and searched by hand.
    Okay, the hallways were lit by auxilliary lights, so that was manageable. We got our luggage like this: A worker would call your name, then you would go up to him and he would give it to you.
    Fortunately, I was lucky that a frum couple, going my way into Brooklyn, had a car waiting in a parking garage for them to pick up, so they gave me a ride.