The the most popular question asked in New York: "Where were you when the power went out?"

To answer this question, lets list our location, time of blackout, time when we got power back, and a little story of what happened.

Location: Roslyn, New York (North Shore, Long Island, New York)
Time of Blackout: 4:15 PM on 8/14/2003
Time Power Was Recovered: 11:35 AM on 8/15/2003
Story: Well, I was sitting at my PC in my basement, working on code for a new website, and installing Corel WordPerfect 11 Productivity Pack (Dell OEM) on a Centrino Laptop for a client. All the lights in the room started to dim, and they were at a dim for about 5 minutes. At this point, all 6 of my UPS's (uninteruptable power supplies; aka battery backups) were beeping like crazy (to notify me that there was a problem with the power current). I thought it was a simple blown fuse, and proceded to the circut breaker to check it. Since all of the fuses were in the "on" position, I realized that this power interuption was not our problem. I proceded to shut down the two servers, six workstations, two laser printers, all of the network appliances, and then the UPSs. At the time, I didn't know this was an eastern seaboard problem, and I figured it was limited to my block. I found the LIPA bill (Long Island Power Authority) and was about to call them; when I realized I had no working phones! My phones all operate on electricty! I called my mother on my cell phone (who was working in Lower Manhatten) and she told me that she had lost power too. Next, a neighbor knocked on my door, and notified me that that her family in New England had also lost power. I abandoned calling LIPA at that point; I think they were aware of the problem. I just sat by the radio all night until around 1:30AM, and then I went back to sleep.

Location: Dah Nawth Shaw of Lawn Giland
Time of Blackout: around 4pm-something
Time Power was Recovered: My mom said at 5am, but I didn't wake up until a quarter to 8am to find everything back on.
Story: I was hangin' out on TTF and watching TV when my computer and stereo restarted themselves. My computer starting telling me "CPU FAILURE! CPU FAILURE!" With that, I noticed the stereo didn't go back on. I tried turning it on and nothing happened. The computer kept making this loud hissing sound so I disconnected the power supply. I called my mom at work in Queens and told her the lights flickered and when they came back on, a surge must've gone through my computer and stereo. She told me: "Oh, yours only flickered? Ours are out over here!" So then I checked out the light switches, noticed they weren't working either, and called my mom back and said "Yup, nothing here either!" Then I spent the rest of the night wondering why even without electricity my computer was humming and screaming "CPU Failure" (yes, my motherboard actually talks through my speaker system via an onboard sound card).

Then I spent the rest of the nite laying in bed and watching the news on my portable tv. I even watched Conan O'Brien interview Jeri Ryan ... 7 of 9 I made myself mac 'n' cheese for dinner. (Boiled water on a gas stove, and used the Velveeta cheese packets that don't need to be refrigerated.) Not too bad 4 a blackout, eh?

I'm in Texas

i was at work alday got home from work and i was asked if i had heard bout the outage on the east coast and was like what the hell. and then watched some new to find out if it was a terrist thing found it it wasnt. and decided our powergrids suck if they cant handle 2 days of 90 degree weather. *looks around and hopes it doesnt happen in ND where tomorrow will be the 3 day of 90 degree temps :eek: * but thank god they got the power back in half a day and not like 5 days. like back in 97 here in north dakota in the middle of winter :evil:

They still don't know what the cause was. They original thought it was a malfunction @ the Niagra Falls power supply ... then they said it wasn't that but instead it was a malfunction in Canada that somehow trickled down the whole east coast.

I was in the light ,here on the east coast (the real east coast right next to the water)of Canada our power system picked up the problem and did some funny stuff and kept power ,our power plants here sell/export power to the Easter US.It's A Small World and becoming smaller .

Location: Manhattan, NYC - 43 street
Time of blackout: 4:12pm
Electricity recovered: Sometime between 9:45am-7:35pm... I was asleep.
I was semi-asleep. I had a major headache when I woke up and didnt know what time it was. I then stared at my tv, and it was recieving bad reception. It showed a picture of a dog, except it was one of those bad-reception-scarey-movie-dogs. So I changed the channel to something, my light flickered, then off the electricity. So I thought I was stuck into one of those dreams-that-are-scary-movies things. Electricity didn't come back @ my apt, until long after everyone else's (with good reason: I literally live on the corner of times square). So I stayed @ my upstate house where electricity ran when I arrived about 5 hours later (about 4 hours of non-working traffic lights, and civilian direction). God I love New York City.

Sleeping, I slept throught entire thing and when I woke up I just turned on my PC and got working I didnt even know what happened.

I was watching the news(FOX) as the Breaking news came on I thought no big deal then later they showed people getting out of cars and running down the interstate as if another 9/11 was going on they must have been getting conflicting radio reports, anyway that was the funniest thing I have ever saw I mean you would have thought Tony Soprano and crew was out collecting money or somthing.