Blackout - 2003
On Thursday, August 14th around 4pm large parts of Northeast USA and Ontario, Canada were without electric power. We in Rochester, NY lost power for a little over 12 hours. Other parts in Rochester were without power for as little as 2 hours. It is widely believed at this point that an overload of the grid system somewhere in Ohio caused a cascading domino effect and took out power in the North-east. We spent the night at S & C's home(the lucky few who had power) and enjoyed their wonderful hospitality.
Why such a big deal over a power blackout ? Frankly i felt a little silly telling my dad in India about this event & trying to get his attention. To most people on the outside, it appears to have been nothing more than an inconvenience - something to be prepared for always. To understand its economic and nuisance impact in the US, is to know how dependent people here are on electricity in the daily lives. Can you really blame us? When a failure such as this happens at the rate of once in decade, people do tend to take electricity for granted.
For me, it was an opportunity for a little reflection while in the darkness, so to speak. And i felt strangely at home. No noise from the TV, no computers to stay connected, no flickering LED's from a zillion gadgets, no steady ho-hum from heaven-knows-what that slowly lulls me to sleep. Did i miss electricity ? Yes. Did i enjoy the blackout? Yes. Yeah i'd recommend a blackout once-in-a-while for everyone.
