The power finally came back on at around 7:20 PM tonight. I was sitting on my futon trying as hard as I could not to sweat, when I heard a loud cheer from the courtyard and saw that the lights had gone on in the apartments outside my window.
It’s been a weird couple of days. The power went out around 4:15 PM yesterday while I was looking up some labs in the preceptor’s room. The A/C had been on full-blast, so we all thought that it was just an overloaded circuit, but soon we got word that nearby buildings were affected and everyone went smoothly into disaster-mode. Take care of any urgent patient needs and encourage everyone else to go home. No staff leaves until we know what’s going on. Around 6:30, we got the word that whoever was within walking distance could go home, provided that they be back first thing in the morning. I figured 4 miles is walking-distance, so I left. From the 80’s to around 63rd St, 2nd Avenue was packed with cars trying in vain to get to the Queensboro bridge. Traffic lights were off, but it didn’t seem to matter since the cars weren’t moving anyway. Civilians were trying to direct traffic with varying success. The cars obeyed, but pedestrians were on their own schedule. From the Queensboro down to the 40’s, pedestrians replaced the cars and swarmed over the street.
I got to my neighborhood around 8ish. Most of the local shops were out of flashlights and running low on water. I swear the people at the counter were just making up prices as they went along, but no one really seemed to care. After getting settled at home, I went for a short walk outside around 10PM. I was shocked at how dark New York was without any lights. You could clearly see the stars in the sky. It was dangerous to walk around without a flashlight because there would be people just sitting on the sidewalk waiting to be tripped over.