What were you doing 9 years ago?

[Kiwi]

Do you remember what you were doing 9 years ago today? At approximately 4:10 August 14th 2003 across eastern North America there was a complete blackout. The power outage affected an estimated 10 million people in Ontario and 45 million people in eight U.S. states. So do you remember what you were doing when the blackout hit?


This post on Facebook caught my eye. I haven't thought about this event for a while, but I do remember it. Had no idea it was 9 years ago today.

I remember I was at work, and the whole store went dark (thankfully we had a good number of windows). There was still about an hour before we closed, but we stayed open. The cash register was off, the internal phone system was down. Also the cooler and freezer were off. Before we left for the night we put whatever we could from the cooler into the freezer, hoping it would be enough to keep stuff good.

I remember I was supposed to have my last in-class driving school lesson, but they called the house to say if power wasn't back on in time, class was postponed. It got rescheduled for a week or so later. Dinner was BBQ by candle light.

The next day we opened the store still.... had all of 2 customers. We ended up closing at lunch since there was no one around, and no one could call to find out we were open. And we lost most of the stuff we had tried to save from the cooler (cheese, yogurts, etc).

I think we got power back later that day sometime. That was definitely an experience of a lifetime.

[saply]

Idk, I partied hard back in the day

[SourdoughStomper]

I was in Whitehorse. I had a 3 year old girl who had finally just been potty trained. I also had a toddler boy, and was pregnant with my third child. Probably was starting to be bummed out that summer was over.

No power outage in the Yukon, thank goodness. I vaguely remember the outages as my MIL lives in London.

[shockponie]

I would've been on summer vacation in high school. Oh, how I miss summer break. 

[starrypawz]

Uh, I think I would have still been in primary school or maybe my first year of secondary school.

[teresat]

I was probably working and just returned from a long trip to the UK.

[Eviecorn]

I was beginning my junior year of college ... don't recall the blackout for some reason, though.

[kittybethy]

I had just graduated college and was job hunting.


 Ironically, I'm job hunting now too!

[kaoskat]

I don't remember any blackout, but seeing as I lived in Florida, blackouts happened alot anyway so I wouldn't remember it as anything special.

[Dewprincess]

I was getting ready to head back to college for my sophomore year.  I actually was in Toronto that summer, but not during the blackout

[PolkaDot99]

Wow thats scary!! But no I dont remember because 9 years ago I was a toddler lol so sleeping or playing or something?!? Lol

[invaderhorizongreen]

I was working in the return center and we had to close the store because of no power. All the customers were not happy and the rest of the staff were scurrying around frozen foods with flashlights trying to keep the coolers cold.

[ButtercreamDream]

I was on a plane, flying from Korea to Hawaii, looking at a photo on the front page of the newspaper with the newyork skyline, and not a single light on, laughing at my friends who were stuck in the dark.  Joke was on me though, because everyone just partied for several days.

[MnDancer]

I was living in Alabama at the time, so it didn't afect me, but it did hit my parents in Michigan. It was especially difficult for them because my step-dad is handicapped and his very elderly mother was living with them, too. They didn't have water either for a while as I recall. They were very fortunate that the next door neighbor had a generator and let them plug a few things in when they really needed them.

[hyenacub]

We didn't get the blackout lol  So I was probably doing my normal stuff.