From “Bloggers Among Hardest Hit by Massive Blackout”:

A widespread electrical power outage affected some 20 million North Americans tonight, but none were so hard hit as writers of so-called weblogs, a kind of online journal.

With no electricity, many “bloggers” were forced to post their latest musings to the Internet by candlelight. Some resorted to using old-fashioned kerosene-fueled personal computers. Others wrote their thoughts out longhand on paper then ran through the streets reading them aloud to the passing crowds of stranded commuters.

[ via The People’s Republic of Seabrook ]
Kiri took photos of the blackout from her roof in Brooklyn, as well as this video (16mb, but worth it) panning 360 degrees in the darkness. The Statue of Liberty was lit up during the blackout!
[ via Uffish Thoughts ]
No one I saw during the blackout was really seriously complaining about the power outage, other than wondering when they’d get home or where their loved ones were. I guess everyone realized it could be much much worse (I mean, hello September 11) and so everyone who could get home last night made the most of it, there were lots of impromptu barbeques on roofs and street parties in New York. Lots of people caught in Manhattan figured out they wouldn’t get home before morning so they might as well party in bars or at a friend’s house. There were lots of people walking around with drinks in hand (and quite a few who were staggering or worse) when I finally went in at two a.m.
The weird thing for me was seeing how unprepared most people were to deal with an emergency, even people who’d been in Manhattan two years ago during the attacks. Most people didn’t have flashlights in their bags or even at home (our building’s stairwells and halls were pitchblack, so the doormen had to walk people without lights up and down the stairs—and there are twelve floors in my building), many didn’t even have candles or a bottle of water at home in case the water went out too, or even contingency plans for meeting up with loved ones in case the phone networks were down.
(Meanwhile back in Manila, as a result of the power shortages in the early 90s that had electricity going out for at least four hours every single day for about a year, everyone’s got stacks of candles and boxes of matches at home just in case (even though we’ve now got a power surplus), and all the malls and hotels have generators to power lights and refrigerators so food doesn’t spoil and lights and elevators still work. Yes, people actually go shopping even when the lights are dim and the mall’s airconditioning is off. No one gets to stay home from work or school even when the power goes out—I was in high school during the power shortages and as much as I hated chemistry, it was even less fun learning it in a dark room.)