OMED: Michael sits darkly at the sports desk for the Tillamook Headlight Herald   A journalistic Trekkie who types faster than light, he has experienced blackouts many times -- the one before this on a golf course. (He parred a hole, and the shock was too much  for his delicate literary sensibilities.) In the piece below, he relates his experiences in far out New York City, when, once more in his star-crossed life, the lights went out.  (Photo: Publicity shot of Mike O'Brien during his days as a star of Hollywood SciFi flicks.) 

   On Aug. 14, my first full day ever in New York City, I was dramatically reminded that I don't do well in extreme heat. I had started the day with a few hours of downtown Manhattan exploration, joined my friend Sarah for a subway ride to Yankee Stadium, taken a tourist's notice of Harlem and Central Park and had a late lunch at the famous Carnegie Deli. As the temperature climbed past 100 degrees, I needed a break.

   Through the kindness of my host, I was in residence in a sixth-floor walk-up on 34th Street in Manhattan, and made my excuses to go there and take an hour nap, and meet up later with Sarah, my tour guide. After climbing those stairs, I was ready to recline for a spell. But first, I grabbed an unplugged coffee pot, filled it up and plugged it in at 4:07 p.m. At that moment, 50 million people in the Northeast lost power. 

 (Photo: the eastern half of the U.S. and Canada in the blackout as seen from space.)

   I assumed it was simply a fuse which I had blown, opted to make repairs after the all-important power nap, and laid down. While I am not ready to admit causing the blackout personally, most of my friends, relatives, the people I stayed with and met in Manhattan, and those who know me at all, are solidly convinced the blackout was my doing. But that was of no consequence to me at the moment, as I had no clue of what was occurring throughout the region. I dozed off. 
                                              
   The plan was that I would be awakened by a cell phone call, and would meet Sarah, who was at her law-office workplace, for the next stretch of our tour. But it changed.  I was awakened by her firsthand, with the words, "Wake up, country boy. Put on your shoes and grab your camera. We've got a long walk ahead and the show is on."
     At that moment, little was known about what had occurred, but people were finding their way from skyscraper stairwells in the dark and crawling through trap doors in pitch-dark subways, literally filling the streets of Manhattan with millions of bystanders. 

   Those of you here had more knowledge of what was happening than those of us in the midst of it. There were no televisions, no radio reports, cell phones and portable phones weren't working, and helicopters and low-flying aircraft, along with sirens, filled the air. Obviously, on the heels of what had occurred nearly two years ago in the same city, thoughts were radiating dread and uncertainty on the faces on the street. The only ones with sketchy information were the small percentage of those with car radios, reaching past the immediate area, from whom we were slowly learning that Detroit, Cleveland, New Jersey, Connecticut and all of New York City had simultaneously lost all power. 

   Sarah had two objectives which were immediate. First, her sister-in-law, from Connecticut, eight and one-half months pregnant, was somewhere in Manhattan that day and had reached her on a land line, while both were still at respective office sites. Leslie, the sister-in-law, agreed to meet us some miles away, on a street corner on Sixth Avenue and 53rd Street. 
   Sarah had reached her boyfriend Peter Migliorini, and asked him to try to get his vehicle to that area, where we would all meet. That failing, the plan was to walk several more miles to Greenwich Village, to the restaurant Migliorini operated, and go from there. 

   We have power outages here in Tillamook, sometimes for days. Usually, it means we fire up the barbecue, light a few candles and build a fire. It's gotten familiar to us. But this, in this location, was dramatically different. Most everyone lives or works in a multi-story building with
air-conditioning. Most everyone walks, as only a rich fool brings vehicles into Manhattan, with the monthly cost of parking more than $400 in most instances. Therefore, most are leaving the city each day on public transportation, be it trains, subways, buses or ferries. 
   It's a walking city.  So, when several million of us hit the streets simultaneously, with nowhere to go except by foot, each turn of each corner was compelling. There were no stop lights, and citizens, in lieu of police, who were dealing with things elsewhere, were out in the middle of streets, holding and directing traffic, as there were tens of thousands of people walking on each street, in different directions.

   Some had signs, looking for rides to Brooklyn or upstate or to New Jersey. Some were disoriented. Many women had taken high heels off and were walking barefoot. Crowds were forming in front of still-open but darkened stores, buying water or food from vendors with cigar boxes instead of cash registers. Some had simply found a place to sit, in construction site cubicles or on library steps, to view the spectacle. 
   In the second hour of our walk, merchants began giving away things like ice cream and water.  One business was giving away tennis shoes to those who had the need and the right foot size.  Despite any preconceived notions about the urban jungle that I may have had, the entire spirit was one of helpfulness and support. I was mightily impressed. 

   Just after 7 p.m, we reached our designated meeting place and there was Sarah's boyfriend, standing on his car looking for us, with the pregnant Leslie already on board the air-conditioned SUV, which had been rented for our upcoming tour of Northeast baseball parks, which was currently in a delay phase. It was especially good to see them and we boarded the vehicle to try to reach Greenwich Village and the restaurant. It had taken Peter two and one-half hours to drive 41 blocks through the event thus far. 
   The theme on the roads was one of patience.  We made it just before 8:30 to the family restaurant, which now had moved its chairs outside, gathered flashlights, and was serving as a gathering place for neighbors and friends, most of whom had no way to get home, or homes that were unusable due to the walk-up into extreme temperatures in the dark. 

   Slowly but surely, everyone helped everyone else with their situations. 
   There was a woman with two young daughters who had been unable to reach her husband, and needed to get all the way to Brooklyn. For her and the girls, an apartment on the second floor of a nearby building was donated. Renato, Pauline, Maria and Pete Migliorini were providing water and snack plates for all of us who were gathered on the streets and Pete kept the car running with the radio on, so people could stop and get a feel for what was occurring. The same kind of scene was happening on each street corner in the city. People were gathering and helping each other. 

   At about 11:30, we started across town to get Sarah's sister to Sarah's apartment, where she could slowly climb the darkened six flights, as there was no way to get her home tonight. The phones were out in Connecticut as well as New York, and her husband had no idea where she was for much of the night. The three of us slowly climbed the dark stairs to a blistering hot
apartment, where Sarah got her sister-in-law to rest and then sat down with me to play gin rummy by candlelight, to pass the time. Eventually, we all got about an hour’s sleep before daylight.
   At about 4 a.m., I climbed out onto a fire escape for some air, and was hypnotized by the view of a darkened mass of skyscrapers in downtown Manhattan, under a full yellow moon, with Mars blazing aside it. It was as surreal a view as I have ever enjoyed. 

   In the morning, Sarah and Leslie walked to Grand Central Station, where thousands had slept, and were now forming groups to find multiple ways to get each other home, with whatever resources were available. Leslie shared the cost of a towncar with someone else riding to Connecticut. 
   Talking to people, I learned that the Staten Island Ferry had altered its route and taken some other friends of my hostess to Brooklyn during the night. Another person had walked 17 hours to get home, across multiple bridges with no cars on the road. The streets were covered with the
remnants of those who had stayed up all night in groups or slept there. There would not be power until late that afternoon or early evening in some areas of Manhattan. 

   Personally, the memory I will carry was one of remarkable village-type support, in an urban atmosphere, which carried through the two-day outage in New York City. There was no looting, there were people stepping up to help those who may have been mentally disabled, or confused with the crisis. A sense of family had occurred in the city of eight million, which I felt
was partially in place from 9-11, and what had occurred on that tragic day a couple of years ago. 
   Our story was just one on that night. The vast number of people who surrounded us had their own. We left town that morning for Baltimore, with the power still out and the streets a solid mess of having been lived on for the past 15 hours. When we returned, they were clean, people were acting normally and the city was back on its feet, two days later. 

   It was enlightening to witness the ability of a huge city to find its way through such an event, helping each other and stepping up, just as we have here, during floods or serious situations. My disdain for the urban jungle was misplaced. New Yorkers were at their best. I thought upon arriving that I would be merely amused by the impossibility of good living in an urban landscape, such as Manhattan, but I came away impressed and grateful for the experience.  
   My hatred of the New York Yankees will remain in place, but my respect for the residents and visitors in Manhattan during the 2003 blackout, which choked them on a steamy August evening, is one I won't forget soon. 

© 2003 Michael O'Brien