Friday, July 13, 2007

I was at my aunt & uncle's apartment

The blackout of '77 hit while I was staying at my aunt & uncle's apartment in Brooklyn. When the power went out in the apartment, we went to the apartment's balcony so we could look around and see if the whole building was out.

Well, not only was the whole building out, but all of the surrounding buildings were out. And what I found amazing was that we could see the power dropping out neighborhood by neighborhood. Huge squares of blocks were dropping out at a time. If not for how much a summertime blackout sucked, it would have been pure entertainment.

We were pretty well stuck in the apartment for the duration of the blackout. We could have gone down the stairs to street level, but going back up would have sucked, since their apartment was pretty high up in the building. So we stayed in the apartment.

Eventually, the water ran out. Water in the building came from tanks on the roof. The tanks were filled by electric pumps. No power meant no refilling of the tanks. So the water ran out.

When that happened, there was some added entertainment. Some of the people in the other apartments had fishing poles and were using them to lower buckets down so people on the ground could fill them with water from other sources.

It was an event to remember, but I'd hardly call it fun!

That was 30 years ago today. It sure doesn't seem like 30 years, but the calendar doesn't lie. 30 years. Wow, I'm getting old! :)

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