Best blackout, ever

GTwander

Last night was something amazing, at least to the likes of me (always obseving the "human zoo"). It was like being thrown back into the dark ages, the city literally became a village again - and I mean that in many different ways.

When it first happened I figured it was just one of the asshole roommates turning on the AC at the wrong time, went to check the breakers. Once outside, I saw almost all my neighbors in the street, some of them banging on  the doors of others, trying to get some answers. Immediately I figured a palm frond hit a transformer again, so I went driving around to see the extent of it. Light after light was out, and my favorite radio station was total static. Knew it was big at that point, so I just drove around (avoiding major streets) and checked out the damage. It was mindblowing.

Usually when the power goes out, in a very localized spot, everyone is intent to just wait it out or go someplace else to waste time. When *everyone* got hit, the suburbs were littered with people like a migration of refugees. The liquor stores were loving it, I've never seen the owners so happy in my life. One store had a circus of people inside, chatting it up, moments from singing Koom-bye-yah. The other had a line stretching out around the block. This is what happens when major chains break down because of these events; the little guy becomes king of the trash heap, for a day. It was a beautiful thing, kind of.

I bought a beer and decided to just go home, get drunk, and hope the power is on by the time I wake up. Though, by the time I got there my roomie proved to be as bored as I was, so I suggested walking to the closest bar (another industry that thrives on days like this) and getting schlitzed. Along the way we saw the sights of neighbors on their lawns with lanterns and dominos, barbeques flaring on every corner, shady types congregated on their stoops, en masse. Also, my roommate is from out-of-state, so he doesn't know that you can't just lock eyes and greet everyone you pass by. He got quite a bit of cold silence and insults in spanish, I don't know much of it, but I got the jist is that he's a border-running chicken (apparently Mexicans hate other Mexicans). I had to explain how things work in the city... so much for being a village, eh?

When we got to the bar it was lit by a single floodlight aimed at the ceiling, powered by a car battery, surely, and they were only selling bottles (which I assume was them taking advantage of the situation). The place was packed, and I ended up spending 20$ on budweiser bottles that didn't get the job done. Still had fun there, but in retrospect, I am now pissed about it. The beer I brought home is now warm and staring at me, but I think cheating on it was the right thing to do.

I got a ride home by the roomie's GF... ex-GF... whatever the weird deal is with them. On the way I heard they dropped generators, or something to that effect, in needed areas - one of them being a district not far from my house. I wasn't that drunk anyway, and I needed *some* kind of civilization before crashing out. Drove out there, got me some jerky and a donut, the usual survival gear, then ended my day on that note. I bet the police are loving the ticket-cleanup of all the cars that couldnt get tows last night, and that 9 months from now there will be a boom of "blackout babies". The latter point makes me think I totally wasted that day.

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What's your story?

Metentso

Are you a writer?

GTwander

Maaaybe. Don't use what's above as a professional attempt at it though, just thought I'd share.

Laserwolf

Yeah... I'd probably just do what I always do during power outtages and watch a movie or two on my ipod while sitting in front of my battery powered fan until it was time to go to sleep. People need to chill.

Cleffy

Probably the bad part of this is it happened in San Diego which has a really big economy and only 8 hours of downtime for such a large city could have implications for the economy within the US.  San Diego acts as a large hub for imports from Mexico and South East Asia.  It always amazes me at how well run San Diego is.  No major incidents with one of the smallest police forces per capita.  By the time the state was ready to waste emergency relief money, the incident was already over.  Still I think this shows once again the pitfalls of California's attitutude towards energy.  They priced power plants out of the state which creates larger costs for infrastructure to power the grid.

Illius

Back when that bigass blackout hit the eastern seaboard, I was in the dark for 3 days.  It was hot as hell to boot so most people tried to find whatever way they could to get comfortable.

The first day when I found out I decided to walk into downtown just to see what the people were upto along the way.  Got tons of free ice cream because it was starting to melt and the owners didn't want to deal with the cleanup afterwards so where ever you went, if you wanted some you could take some.

Random people stepped in to marshal traffic at major intersections, and you'd see random other people bringing them water and replacing them, same with police.

I ended up spending 2 of the nights down by the lake where it was cloder, sitting around a fire with a bunch of friends gettin drunk on whatever we had.  Good thing lake water was cold and perfect for chilling some drinks, cuz as you well know warm beer tastes like... well... like warm beer.  Nothing significant happend otherwise and life returned to normal later on with random parts of the city gettin power at different intervals. 

That's my story.