The Big Blackout of 2003

Digging through the old notes on my Palm Pilot, I found a log I entered on the fateful day of the massive blackout that hit most of Southwestern Ontario, the Midwest, and New England...

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August 15, 2003

The great blackout of the young century. From TO to NYC to OT to Detroit. Niagara-Mohawk screwed up...again according to the 1965 blackout.

I'm at U of T. Got stuck in traffic at 4:15pm, gave up at 5:15pm. So I parked at Hart House and walked over to Robarts and ate like a student (i.e. Hot dog & iced tea). My cell isn't working...Rogers sux. Pay phoned mom to tell her my status and make sure things are cool on her end. Arn is stuck at Mt. Sinai, Skippy's probably stuck at King & Bay.

Cops are working the intersections. Traffic is crawling, and still some fools hit their horns.

I'll stick around for a bit. 6:30pm now, prob try leaving in an hour.

I left via Spadina around 7:00pm. Cops and civillians were manning the traffic lights so things went smooth. Good peeps of T.O.! Gardiner/QEW was nice and clear. Hurontario much the same as Spadina. It was almost 8:00pm when I got home.

Amma and I unplugged unnecessary stuff, and turned off the A/Cs. We also started lighting tea lights as sunset started. We called our friends to make sure everyone got home okay. Most did.

We set up sleeping bags in the living room. The light from the cars' headlights and the generator lights from the building next door kept things from being completely pitch black.

Shahroz phoned me around midnight, Chicago was not affected. At 12:26am, the power came back on in Central Mississauga. Then I passed out!

Morning...plugged the TV and computer back in. Looks like the cable and modem are still out. Oh well. So begins the post-blackout restoration.
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Mike and April had just returned from their trip (and engagement) to Europe, smack dab in the middle of the blackout. Mike had tried to call me when they arrived, but the power outages affected the Rogers network so he couldn't get a hold of me. They ended up staying with a UNB friend of Mike's (later to be the legendary Dunner!), and then tried their luck flying back to Fredericton. Pearson Airport was a nightmare so they stayed with us the next night.

I remember seeing a lot of finger-pointing from Ohio, Michigan, Ontario, and New York power authorities as to who was to blame for this grand cascade failure. In the end, it was a combination of poor upkeep of the Ohio grid, and Operator failure. Surprise surprise. You can read about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_North_America_blackout

Crazy times!

imho
-A

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