where were you when the lights went out?
Aug. 16th, 2003 03:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_siobhanEmpty streetcars sitting deserted on the street. A sign scrawled on a piece of cardboard on the door of the liquor store, "Closed Due To Power Failure". Holding a meeting on the back steps and scribbling notes while ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
caspervonb held a candle for me. Walking through the CNE ground surrounded by black everywhere except for the gas generator-powered lights on the amusement rides. Sitting on the lakefront smelling the dead fish and debating the source of the lights across the water. Silent police cars sliding down the streets of my low-income neighbourhood, their red lights rotating a stern warning. Strangers talking to each other on the street. I heard it was a lightning strike in Niagara Falls. They've declaired an emergency. There's power back up down Yonge St, but nowhere else. New York and Ohio are out too. It goes as far as Detroit. Crossing streets nearly empty of cars but not wasting any time doing it, because we know they can't see us. People sitting on porches and the smell of pot everywhere. Dozens of tiny candlelights flickering through the glass windows of the neighbourhood bars. To bed with the Coleman lantern and morning coffee on the camp stove. The smell of barbeques. Dinner in the sports bar down in Casper's neighbourhood, because they have power there, then walking home on a street that is divided in half by the railways, light on their side, dark on ours. Catching a bus by waving a flashlight at it so he can see me, standing in black on a dark corner. Boxes of supplies stacked against the walls of the basement to keep it cool. The IT staff sleeping on their desks in a darkened office after 32 hours straight of monitoring the equipment. The bus sliding down silent streets in the grey of the morning. Waking to the hum of the dehumidifier starting up and sliding back into dreams to the white noise.
caspervonb held a candle for me. Walking through the CNE ground surrounded by black everywhere except for the gas generator-powered lights on the amusement rides. Sitting on the lakefront smelling the dead fish and debating the source of the lights across the water. Silent police cars sliding down the streets of my low-income neighbourhood, their red lights rotating a stern warning. Strangers talking to each other on the street. I heard it was a lightning strike in Niagara Falls. They've declaired an emergency. There's power back up down Yonge St, but nowhere else. New York and Ohio are out too. It goes as far as Detroit. Crossing streets nearly empty of cars but not wasting any time doing it, because we know they can't see us. People sitting on porches and the smell of pot everywhere. Dozens of tiny candlelights flickering through the glass windows of the neighbourhood bars. To bed with the Coleman lantern and morning coffee on the camp stove. The smell of barbeques. Dinner in the sports bar down in Casper's neighbourhood, because they have power there, then walking home on a street that is divided in half by the railways, light on their side, dark on ours. Catching a bus by waving a flashlight at it so he can see me, standing in black on a dark corner. Boxes of supplies stacked against the walls of the basement to keep it cool. The IT staff sleeping on their desks in a darkened office after 32 hours straight of monitoring the equipment. The bus sliding down silent streets in the grey of the morning. Waking to the hum of the dehumidifier starting up and sliding back into dreams to the white noise.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-16 08:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-16 08:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-16 12:08 pm (UTC)Gah! And you had neighbours only blocks away with power and fresh roasted coffee. :(
darkness
Date: 2003-08-16 12:14 pm (UTC)At the time, we had no idea that other parts of the city had power already.
TRAINS do not BELONG in the STREET!
Date: 2003-08-18 07:13 am (UTC)