Thursday Thoughts: Blackout!

No, I’m not referring to anything involving alcohol!

I well remember the Summer of 1965 for many reasons.  I was in my mid-teens, and a lot was happening that year.  But one of the biggest events was the “Great Northeastern Blackout.”

It was amazing, and very scary.  The Cold War was going on.  The Cuban Missile Crisis was recent history.  Life seemed normal, if a bit nervous.  I was in my mid-teens.  We were watching TV, when the signal went out.  There were a few moments of static, and then the screen lit with a test pattern.  (In those days, there was no cable, and all TV was by broadcast.)  Eventually, our local station came back on the air with an announcement.  They had lost network feed from New York.  More, they were not able to contact anyone about it.  It was as if New York, and most of the northeastern part of the country had dropped off the face of the earth.

As the evening, and the next few days passed, we learned more.  There had been a massive power failure, and it had blacked out most of the north eastern United States and Canada.

I was no stranger to power outages.  Snow, storms, and the occasional wildly stray motorist had caused quiet a few in my life.  But this was different.  This was a power outage that affected a huge area, and cut power to millions.

Most folks in New York made a party out of that first big outage.  That attitude wouldn’t last.

Think about that for just a moment.  Traffic lights don’t work, so traffic goes to immediate gridlock.  Communications go out.  Emergency services depend on communications.  Heat, light, and air conditioning go away.  Trains stop running.  Airports can’t land aircraft.  Hospitals are suddenly dark.  Your friendly local policeman is likely stuck in traffic, and has no way to communicate with anyone.

In 1965 I lived in a rural town, outside of the area affected by the big blackout.

I was caught in one, not quite so massive, a bit later on.  I was in Richmond, VA when it happened.  I’d been down there for a bike race.  The power went out in the late afternoon.  For the whole city.  Battery powered radio news said that the area affected was huge, and no one new exactly when power would be restored.

By that time blackouts weren’t funny any more.  Usually there was a large amount of looting and lawlessness.

I had two reasons to get out of town.  One was fear of the situation.  The other was a job I needed to report to.  Home was about 120 miles and two mountain ranges away.  I packed up some food, grabbed some gear and my bike, and hit the road.

Getting out of town was a bit of a nightmare.  It was better for a cyclist.  The major thoroughfares in the city were blocked, but a bike is small, narrow, and maneuverable.  Three hours it took me to get well outside the city.  Another five hours saw me to the bus station in Charlottesville.  From there it was easy to buy a ticket and ride the rest of the way.  In the years since, I have used my bicycle as an emergency vehicle, an escape mode, a “second stage,” and a lifeboat on about 20 occasions.  A couple of those were genuine lifesavers.  It bears thinking about.