last night someboddy in my neighbiorhood was driving drunk and caused a power blackout by hitting a power transfomer and knocking it over .it was lights out for everyone in my apartment building and everyone on my whole block for that matter . my power and internet was restored a few hours ago and we are all ok but it gave me the idea for a power blackout thread .i was wondering how many of you have been in a power blackout before? this is my third one in my lifetime and the last one was 23 years ago

*Once it went out while I was watching TV at 11:00 at night. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, it was so dark (we live out in the sticks) But turns out, a snake somehow got in the generator.
*For a while the power went out every day because some guys were fixing the posts to phone/electricity lines around winter time (this happened last year.) I missed one of my favorite 'All in the Family' episodes because of it! :mad:

a few years ago, i found an item on ebay that i really wanted and it was ending in just a few minutes, and just when i clicked to bid, some guys working on a power line or something knocked out the power so they could work. yeah that kind of sucked.

August of 2003, parts of the northeast in the U.S. had a blackout and I was affected. It was hot as hell that day, and many people were out of power. I got off of work at 5:30, and was out and power didn't come on until after midnight. It was painful.

August of 2003, parts of the northeast in the U.S. had a blackout and I was affected. It was hot as hell that day, and many people were out of power. I got off of work at 5:30, and was out and power didn't come on until after midnight. It was painful.
yeah that was Aug 14th, my 42nd birthday, we went out to eat to celebrate but, all the restaurants were closed....a good deal of Eastern Canada was also affected, strangely, we had electricity here in Welland , while all the surrounding cities were in the blackout!

yeah that was Aug 14th, my 42nd birthday, we went out to eat to celebrate but, all the restaurants were closed....a good deal of Eastern Canada was also affected, strangely, we had electricity here in Welland , while all the surrounding cities were in the blackout!
At 4:11 p.m. ET on Aug. 14, 2003, Ontario and much of the northeastern U.S. were hit by the largest blackout in North America's history. Electricity was cut to 50 million people, bringing darkness to customers from New York to Toronto to North Bay.

Streetlights went out, subway trains stopped mid-tunnel and refrigeration equipment went dead. And while some electricity consumers had service restored by early the next morning, many areas remained in darkness well into the next day and even the one following.

The cause of the blackout, according to Canada-U.S. joint task force, can be traced back to FirstEnergy Corp. of Ohio. Chaired by Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal and U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, the task force tabled its findings in Washington on November 19, 2003.

They say FirstEnergy's EastLake plant shut down unexpectedly on August 14, 2003, triggering a series of problems on its transmission line that triggered a cascade effect that caused the cross-border blackout.

Dhaliwal said this should be a wakeup call for utilities to upgrade their equipment.

yeah that was Aug 14th, my 42nd birthday, we went out to eat to celebrate but, all the restaurants were closed....a good deal of Eastern Canada was also affected, strangely, we had electricity here in Welland , while all the surrounding cities were in the blackout!

Yeah, I forgot parts of Canada was affected too.

Yes,In August 2007, we had a bad wind and rain storm that hit my
area and the power went out. It wasn't even restored until like 2 or 3 a.m.
and let me tell you,When the power's out that long during hot summer
months it doesn't feel very comfortable in your house especially at night!

I have especially when we lived in our old neighborhood, whenever we would have a thunderstorm the whole block would go dark for hrs.

This past summer some drunk hit a pole and our whole neighborhood had no electricity for almost 24 hrs. Going without electricity in the summer in TX does not mix at all.

August of 2003, parts of the northeast in the U.S. had a blackout and I was affected. It was hot as hell that day, and many people were out of power. I got off of work at 5:30, and was out and power didn't come on until after midnight. It was painful.

Yeah, I was effected by that as well. Not a fun time.

August of 2003, parts of the northeast in the U.S. had a blackout and I was affected. It was hot as hell that day, and many people were out of power. I got off of work at 5:30, and was out and power didn't come on until after midnight. It was painful.
August 14 just happens to be my brother's birthday, too!! We were right in the thick of that blackout. Thank goodness I had the day off from work, and I had my battery operated radio on to hear all the bulletins. We were going to take Dave (my brother) out to dinner, but decided to do it a different night. :D

I had a power blackout on Thanksgiving in the middle of the Cowboys-Jets game. :mad:

Yes it was last year around New Years eve time we had a bad ice storm my area was out of power for 2 days. My boyfriend lives in Holdrege Ne and they were out for 2 weeks they had to go stay in a hotel for 5 days till they got generators for the town but it took them 2 weeks till they got full power back. I remember we had my grandparents out for those 2 days becuase we had a generator but most of the people from my town went and stayed at the nursing home.

August of 2003, parts of the northeast in the U.S. had a blackout and I was affected. It was hot as hell that day, and many people were out of power. I got off of work at 5:30, and was out and power didn't come on until after midnight. It was painful.
Man, I remember that. Crazy times. :lol: It was 94°F that day here and it was horrible without any power at all.

In a way it was pretty cool though, cause at times almost the entire city of Detroit was completely dark at night. Which technically could be horrifying, but seeing the natural light of the moon on everything was surreal.

At 4:11 p.m. ET on Aug. 14, 2003, Ontario and much of the northeastern U.S. were hit by the largest blackout in North America's history. Electricity was cut to 50 million people, bringing darkness to customers from New York to Toronto to North Bay.

Streetlights went out, subway trains stopped mid-tunnel and refrigeration equipment went dead. And while some electricity consumers had service restored by early the next morning, many areas remained in darkness well into the next day and even the one following.

The cause of the blackout, according to Canada-U.S. joint task force, can be traced back to FirstEnergy Corp. of Ohio. Chaired by Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal and U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, the task force tabled its findings in Washington on November 19, 2003.

They say FirstEnergy's EastLake plant shut down unexpectedly on August 14, 2003, triggering a series of problems on its transmission line that triggered a cascade effect that caused the cross-border blackout.

Dhaliwal said this should be a wakeup call for utilities to upgrade their equipment.


As I live on the northeast coast of the US, this blackout affected me too.

yeah that was Aug 14th, my 42nd birthday, we went out to eat to celebrate but, all the restaurants were closed....a good deal of Eastern Canada was also affected, strangely, we had electricity here in Welland , while all the surrounding cities were in the blackout!


You lucky bum! I was without power during that for the whole 24 hours. Nothing like BBQ'd tea in the morning!!! Seriously - I tried that and it tasted BBQ'd!! lol

I felt so stranded in the country that whole time too - no phone, nothing. Also didn't have gas in the car so I couldn't go anywhere and had just done all the shopping for the week. Luckily I didn't open the refridge that much so everything was o.k.

There was another time I was without power for 10 hours on the coldest day of the winter. Like the initial poster, some van had hit a hydro tower and knocked power out. Because of the ice and cold, Hydro had a bad time restoring it. It got so cold in my apt. that I had to bundle up in coats and light candles under the bird cage so my cockatiel could keep fairly warm - I felt badly for him the most and stayed home from work to make sure the pets would be o.k.

August of 2003, parts of the northeast in the U.S. had a blackout and I was affected. It was hot as hell that day, and many people were out of power. I got off of work at 5:30, and was out and power didn't come on until after midnight. It was painful.

Ahhh yes, I remember that. My power wasn't affected but my works was. So they sent us home, and I stayed home and watched it on TV... I can't believe it's been almost 5 years!

I used to have to deal with power outages all the time when I went away to school. It was a must to have a flashlight accessable. It was terrible.

We had a really bad storm come through Summer of 1997 and it knocked the power out for 3 days. I remember filling out my 10th birthday invitations by flashlight, LOL. :crazy:

One instance for me when the power was out for a long time was back during the Blizzard of '93.

In the summer of 1993, there was a huge thunderstorm that knocked out our power for about 3-4 days. Our surrounding towns had power, but our town looked like the Twilight Zone. :lol:

One instance for me when the power was out for a long time was back during the Blizzard of '93.

That was bad for us too, we had a big ice storm that caused many of the tree limbs to break knocking out power for almost a week in my area. If you lived inside the city limits your power came back on quicker but for us out in the country it took a week to get it back on. We used a wood stove for heat & cooking and had to take sink baths with water heated on the stove. And we used candles & flashlights to see with. That was loads of fun.:eek:

August of 2003, parts of the northeast in the U.S. had a blackout and I was affected. It was hot as hell that day, and many people were out of power. I got off of work at 5:30, and was out and power didn't come on until after midnight. It was painful.

That's the last one I was in. The weather wasn't too bad in Toledo that day, though.

I remember that one! :lol: I was at work and the power went out around 4 p.m., I'd say. We had to shut down the store (I work at a deli/grocery store) with no lights or air-conditioning. I recall it being really hot and chaotic (at first, the customers kept saying it was terrorists :crazy: We were all terrified!)

To make matters worse, my best friend was travelling from Ohio to visit me in NY that day...there were *no* traffic lights working on the Long Island Expressway! I felt so bad for her.

But we both made it and the power came back on around 7:30 in our area.

August of 2003, parts of the northeast in the U.S. had a blackout and I was affected. It was hot as hell that day, and many people were out of power. I got off of work at 5:30, and was out and power didn't come on until after midnight. It was painful.

Yes, when we had the Northridge earthquake. We were without power for 24 hours. Nothing like living like the Ingalls family on Little House on the Prairie. :lol:

We have had several blackouts for one reason or another including car accidents or a transformer blowing out. Sometimes it is only minutes and other times it has been HOURS. I think the longest other than the earthquake was 7 hours. As a matter of fact, the 7 hour thingy was during the night when I HAD INSOMNIA...Oy vey...talk abt a very bad night. No electricity, no t.v. NADA, ZILCH, ZERO. It was a very loooooooong and boring night.