I Survived the Blackout of 2009
In the wee hours of the morning of March 3rd 2009 (around 1:30am) and just as I had gone to bed, the power went out. Of course, given the ice storm we were experiencing, this was absolutely no surprise. It also wasn’t a problem, I thought, because the university has a back-up power system, which kicked-in like clockwork… for all of three seconds, then the back-up failed for reasons unknown. For a little over two hours, we were in complete and utter darkness, save for the occasional transformer blowrealis, that would light up the dark night sky with vibrant displays of blue and/or green.
And when I say we were plunged in complete darkness, I’m not kidding… This is a quick shot I took from inside my room, via my laptop’s built-in camera:
The mildly creepy picture above is of me, in my dorm room, in a complete blackout... Only illumination is the glow of my laptop's display.
Though a total PITA for some who were working on assignments or who had 8:30am classes, it was quite the adventure. Who knew that a group of university student would be so amused wandering through the hallways of their dorm in total darkness, with cell phones, MP3 players and whatever else they could find as sources of light? Who knew that everyone would be up all night, hanging-out in the lounges and just mess around for hours on end? Isn’t it funny how such simple things can really bring a group together and how people can entertain themselves in the strangest of ways in these times as well? Isn’t it odd that I just wrote a paragraph that almost entirely consisted of questions?
Anyway, we spent the better part of the night just hanging-out and messing around. We theorized about what was happening, especially when those blue or green flashes would happen, with everything you could think of being proposed from zombie attacks to nuclear war. Speaking of nuclear war, I impulsively ducked and covered under a desk after a mention of this… Jokingly, of course and someone else in that same room proceeded to hide in the closet, pulling the same gag I did.
Others went around the house, taking advantage of the situation at hand, to scare the living crap out of people they came across, either by wearing a ski mask and wielding a hammer, or being dressed in black and wearing a Halloween mask… I’m not sure what it is about a blackout that makes people suddenly think that there IS a possibility that ghosts, ghouls and boogeymen are actually out there to get them, but judging by some screams, I’d say they were sometimes successful.
In any case, I believe it was right around 3:00am when the lights finally came on (back-up power was restored), though another hour or so before electricity was fully restored. It was a bittersweet moment, really: we were no longer in the darkness and without our computers and internet and whatnot, but our brief excursion outside of the usual daily grind was over.
Today: Business as usual. Oh well…
