How we survived the Blackout Days

Yes, we were warned. WNYC had announcements about turning off the electricity to avoid the electrical surge caused by Hurricane Sandy. I didn’t really believe much in the beginning since we didn’t experience much of rain nor the strong winds close to us. Then around 6 or 7 o’clock in late afternoon of Monday, October 29 the light started darkening just for a few seconds.

The dinner invite by the upstairs’ guest, Solomon, sounded rather spontaneous. Bruce suggested that we shouldn’t take the elevator so that we won’t risk being trapped inside. While fish was still in the pan with soy sauce based sauce, the light went off. Solomon finished cooking with a help of a flashlight held by Bruce. We dined in candle light and flashlights. His beans were fantastic.

The strong sounds of winds above our head through skylights were almost subsiding by the time we finished the dinner. We had a conference how to share our resource of candles in this building.

The second day of blackout we woke up to the very quiet city. The traffic was very thin; surprisingly some people were still driving even without any working traffic lights. More surprising was that they were behaving extremely well without any traffic police. The streets were partially dry but lingering mist prevented us from riding bikes around. We had no idea how the rest of the city was like since we didn’t have any means to know.

In the morning Bruce rode to his work to check and around Chelsea . He reported to me that above 30^th streets on west side had electricity. We meant to walk up to some place to buy supplies of candles and batteries. I even forgot what those big batteries were called.

At one corner of Park Ave. around 20^th St., many people were on their cell phones or laptops. I talked to an ER worker from Beth Israel. He told us about the explosion of Con Ed’s downtown substation and the repair would take a week according to the hospital information. We were pretty distressed to hear the news. Also we could see dark Met building on 42^nd. From Broadway on 20^th St. we saw skyscraper on 50’s being dark. We had to relinquish the idea of venturing out to the civilization on foot.

Union Square was all blocked off but a kiosk was open. The vendor, Nizam, told me he drove from the Bronx only to offer what he had in stock. I thought I would support him by buying just 2 bars of Hershey for $2.00.

On Lafayette on 12^th St. a roof of a water tower was sitting on the street. Surprisingly it wasn’t too smashed with even the door intact. Many of sign boxes were damaged but a small hanging gate case on a side street didn’t get enough attention to cordon off from authority. Some delis were open for business with candle lights. One clothing store on Broadway near us was also open for business. I guess people always shop no matter what.

I played with a flashlight out of boredom.

When it was dark inside the house, we got very disoriented. So, I decided to cook whatever I could and invited upstairs neighbor. We enjoyed each other’s company somewhat more than normal time. The dinner was good, too. The chocolate bar was the dessert. I suggested that we could play scrabble after the dinner, but our guest declined my offer.

I found I could work on the mosaic project that I was making before the blackout with natural light during the day time as long as I’m using bright color tiles. But sitting made me too cold. We went for a short walk around the neighborhood.

On the third day of dark neighborhood, ironically the only lit building we could see from St. Marks was the Con Edison building.

I completely forgot about Halloween until we met our neighbor on Lafayette who gave us trick or treat fortune cookies. She told us that she saw many great costumed kids around. Since the parade was cancelled or postponed, there were no adults in costumes. It was the quietest Halloween night in New York since I came to this country.

Some of the frozen sausages started to be soft to touch. And cooking was the only thing I could keep my mind away from tedium inconvenience. I decided to make Moroccan style stew with many different meats and many vegetables in the fridge. Later I called this Hurricane Stew.

Next day we also ate more sausages for breakfast along with homemade English muffins. No-knead bread dough makes great English muffins which can be darn chewy and tangy.

After breakfast Bruce biked to Brooklyn to take advantage of electricity at his brother’s. His mission was also to buy more candles, batteries for radio, matches and a head of lettuce. Matches seemed like hard item to find nowadays not just because of blackout. We finally could listen to radio. We were all shocked to hear and see the pictures of devastations around New York when we received three days worth New York Times. We were really kept out of touch.

Our upstairs neighbor was trying to find a way to get to Philadelphia to join his wife who was working for Obama’s campaign. A day later no means of transportation were working. On that day he said he heard that buses to Philadelphia were running. So, he thought he would try. Another friend who was house-sitting at the town house next to us didn’t have much of food or cash in early days. Then he told me that he might go north. All these stories and us in darkness reminded me of the movie “I am Legend.”

We invited another neighbor to tackle on huge quantity of my Hurricane Stew. We ate that once more but the rest had to be frozen later. Later that night we played Scrabble and I was beaten by Bruce. I used to be very good in the game and give 50 handicap points to native English speakers. Maybe I can blame the miniscule amount of wine I had with the dinner.

During the dinner Solomon came to our place to ask a most intriguing question. “Do you know anything about the chicken?” Solomon and upstairs neighbor were mentioning earlier that the whole chicken in the fridge had to be cooked and eaten. Solomon said he was brining it. When he came home a few hours later, the chicken was gone. At the beginning we couldn’t believe it. We thought it was dark or they didn’t look for it well enough. Solomon’s friend said he could still smell chicken in the roasting pan where they set it for baking. We had to laugh. That was the most ridiculous story of missing item. Raw chicken? Sorry, brined raw chicken? Then we thought what if somebody came in to our building while nobody was here. But how? We didn’t think anything was missing from our place, or at least obvious stuff.

On Friday, the fifth day of blackout, we decided to ride for necessary shopping for our vacation up beyond 34^th St. where we heard the lights were working. Actually 40^th St. was the division for lit and unlit towns. Unlike earlier days, there were two cops on every intersection of 3^rd Avenue. Traffic was thin and very smooth. Only I had an exhausting trip with my bike with no gears. Even very slight uphill is difficult with my bike, not mentioning 40 some blocks to peddle.

I enjoyed being inside a branch of Duane Reade almost for the first time because of heating. The temperature was dropping quickly every day and we dreaded about spending another night of dark and cold night. A gentleman in an elegant white silk Chinese jacket at the cashier line told me he paid $5.00 for charging cell phone in China Town. We crossed out a half of our shopping list. We had to leave before it got dark.

On the edge of civilization at the 40^th St. on the 3^rd Ave.

Riding back felt easier than riding up. After all it was downhill going down. Then all the sudden I heard people screaming in East Village. I took them as usual crazy East Villagers, but Bruce pointed out that the lights came back. First was the traffic light, then apartment buildings. I had to ask a man on a fire escape with his room unlit behind him. He went in to check if the electricity was on to let me know. I also joined the crowd and kept screaming. I even got to respond to a rude expression of “M#$%& F#$% New York” by a guy who was hanging outside of a not so reputable bodega on the 3^rd St. From there I kept screaming out of joy all the way to our home.

The light in our hallway was on. The elevator worked. Our room had some lights on without us turning on. The room didn’t look the same as we left earlier that day. It had a strange unfamiliar feeling.

All things considered, we fared well. At least we had gas to cook and hot water for shower. After all we enjoyed that we had to improvise and be creative to survive in the dark. I feel so sorry for the victims who were affected so much. For me it took several days to learn how bad the damage of hurricane Sandy all over the coast lines in New York and New Jersey. When politicians tell that they will rebuild, I wonder if it is a good idea to rebuild just like before since storms like Sandy will become more common and/or bigger caused by global warming. We seriously need to work to reduce CO2 emission so that at least increase of global warming can be slowed.