The Blackout
Just after 4:10 pm August 14, 2003 large swaths of the East Coast began to fall into darkness. Over the next hour major metropolitan cities such as New York, Toronto, Detroit, nearly all of New Jersey and Cleveland suddenly went dark. A tree fell in Akron which lead to a cascading effect of computer glitches that managed to take down an entire East Coast electric grid. The close proximity to 9-11 created a brief surge of fear that this was another terrorist attack. As the blackout cascaded across the East Coast news reports pontificated that there would be widespread crime, looting and chaos. While there was an uptick in deaths and emergency calls many related to overheating, fire and carbon monoxide there was no collapse of civil society as predicted by news demagogues. Looting remained minimal,, there not a widespread chaotic crime spree and one of the most common sight across the region was community barbecues. Families, shops and restaurants across the region tried to eat down all the perishable food that would inevitably go to waste as the power outages dragged on for hours and days. Hundreds of people have stories of walking miles to get to their destination, eating an inordinate amount of ice cream and meat with neighbors, seeing stars urban dwellers had not witnessed since the Industrial Revolution.
Then there was me, a gangly 13-year-old about to enter high school who was just trying to play a game of snake on my Nokia brick in the corner of Cleveland City Hall who suddenly became a trained expert manning the 3-1-1 lines.
Earlier in the afternoon of August 14th, 2003 I was at a theater class at Beck Center for the Performing Arts in Lakewood, Ohio. When the lights went out, we wrapped up early as the humidity began to overpower the now defunct air conditioning system. Class closing early proved a scheduling conflict for my parents because it was the middle of a workday. Like many working parents suddenly being forced to pick up your kid across town while your husband is out of town for work can prove a challenging logistical obstacle. However, unlike most working mothers, my mom had a police detail named Andre who could help solve the scheduling conundrum. I distinctly remember that I was the last kid to leave from class and saying to my teacher, “I’m just waiting for my mom’s policeman” as we sat outside. It was an odd sentiment all around but nonetheless odd sentiments were part of my daily routine in those days.
Soon Andre swooped me up and we headed towards the east side. As we drove stoplight after stoplight was dark. Not far from the Beck Center Andre suggested we stop to get ice cream to break the summer heat. Like every stoplight on the road (in reality nearly every stoplight from Cleveland to New York City) the corner store also had no lights. The owner seemed overjoyed to sell us ice cream that would soon turn to mush and ready to go close up shop. When Andre handed me my ice cream I saw an inquisitive look in his eyes, like someone trying to solve a mystery but not quite sure if anything was off just yet. When we got back into the car I offhandedly mentioned that the power also went out in the Beck Center, it seemed like no one had any light. The spark of curiosity in Andre’s eyes grew brighter. Once we crossed into Cleveland, every stoplight and OPEN sign for miles was still out and Andre knew something was off. Power outages of this magnitude usually didn’t cross city lines in the middle of a sunny summer afternoon. Andre turned to me and said “something seems wrong, I want to stop by City Hall for just a minute and then I’ll take you home.” Let me tell you that turned out to be a verrryyy long minute.
Once we got to City Hall Andre almost immediately got called into an important conversation. The Mayor’s office was alive with a frenetic energy with all hands on deck abuzz with a dizzying energy. It became very clear very quickly I was not going home anytime soon so I settled in. I found a nice chair in the corner of the Executive Secretary’s office and watched the whirlwind around me. It felt like living through a movie where you are sitting still and the world is moving in fast forward around you. A flurry of people came running in and out of the Mayor’s office. People huddled in conversation over important looking documents. Up to the minute reports tracking the blackout, uncovering that it was not a terrorist attack and responding to emergent problems. Things seemed to change minute by minute as the extent of the blackout came to light. I just sat there trying to beat my high score on snake watching the black pixelated snake grow larger and larger as he ate black dots across the green screen. Every so often someone would remember I was in the corner, assure me I would get home soon or hand me a snack, but inevitably they would get soon whisked off to another more pertinent task and promises of my soon return to Drexmore Road went unfulfilled. So, I continued to wait and watch like a flower on the wall, witnessing history from the inside out.
As Cleveland citizens tried to sort through the chaos of the blackout the emergency lines became inundated with calls that were both emergency and non-emergency. The landslide of non-emergency calls coming through 9-1-1 threatened to overload the system and drown out true emergencies which could put lives at risk. In response City Hall transformed into a 3-1-1 call center and nearly all low and mid-level staffers became 3-1-1 operators to field non-emergency calls. The front room with about a dozen desks needed to quickly change a 25-person into a 3-1-1 bullpen. Suddenly my chair tucked out of the way became an essential piece of furniture to create the newly finagled 3-1-1 call center and the chair was taken out from under me. When the office underwent its dramatic reconfiguration I hardly expected to be part of the call center operation. I initially thought I would tuck into a different corner and quietly entertain myself. However, Judie B., my mom’s Executive Secretary and a woman who helped raise me, informed me that much to my chagrin I would in fact be a call center operator. It was ALL hands on deck, including me. Before I sat down she told me a few critical pieces of information: I could not tell my mother I was working the 3-1-1 call line, if a question seemed out of my league I should hand it off to an adult and I was not allowed to tell my mother I was working the 3-1-1 line.
Your clearly qualified 3-1-1 agent at your service
Judie sat me down next to a staffer she trusted who watched over me and the calls came pouring in. For the most part the calls were unmemorable questions revolving around whether or not we knew when the lights would turn back on. Since we had genuinely no idea when the power would return a large part of my duties involved doling out platitudes to remain calm, letting people know when food would go bad and assurances the light would come on as soon as possible. However, a few calls stick out in my mind as clear as day. There was a “Karen” who called convinced that she would be robbed blind in the darkness. She very vocally expressed her concern that her neighborhood was black. I tried to explain that all houses from Cleveland to New York were blacked-out and should she be robbed the police would respond as quickly as possible. She unceremoniously responded that she was not so much referring to the blackout in her neighborhood but the Black people in her neighborhood. Her fear of Black people required her to have power sooner than anyone else. My only response was well then you’re scared just lock your doors, you’ll get power eventually and banged the phone down. Racism does not get the lights will come on sooner.
“Karen” was not the only person to insist that they somehow their lights should return first. An elderly woman called me to inform me that she was too old to have the power off. Although not having electricity on a hot summer day was a legitimate concern, especially if she had co-morbidities, she approached the phone call as if I held a secret code to turning the lights back on. If only she asked the right question in the right way she could unlock the code to restoring her power before the rest of the city. It was simply a matter of figuring out the code rather than a widespread infrastructure problem impacting cities across the East Coast. After about 10 minutes of her badgering me for answers I finally snapped and said “the power will come when it comes on.” She was unexpectedly thankful for this non-answer. I think all she really needed to hear was that no one had the key to the cryptogram that unlock the passcode to power.
There were two other calls that stood out in my mind because they were on completely opposite end of the spectrum. One caller was asking extremely important questions that were quite literally a matter of life or death. The other was asking questions that made you shake your head and ask how the hell is this a real question??
For sake of levity I will start with the nonsensical caller. About three hours into the blackout my mom put out a boil water alert. Since Cleveland’s water treatment plants ran on electricity and was out for a significant period of time, all citizens were advised to boil their water for three minutes to ensure they were drinking safe water. One woman took this boil water alert very seriously and I would dare to say a little too literally. She thought all water needed to be boiled, and but that I mean ALL water. What I thought was a call to provide a simple clarification about why the water needed to be boiled turned into a conversation about a can of peas. With all sincerity she asked me if she had to boil the water in her can of peas for three minutes since the Mayor just advised all citizens to boil all their water. All I could think was oh bless her, she is really out here trying to follow the rules to the letter of the law. What ensured was a three-minute long conversation to clarify that in fact the only water that needed to be boiled was water directly from the tap. All water that was canned or bottled prior to the boil water advisory was potable, which included the water in a can of peas. I can definitely say that I never thought someone would take such a literal interpretation of a boil water advisory, but you never really know what people will ask in the middle of a crisis.
Another memorable phone call came in from St. Luke’s Medical Center. This was far more significant than a confused or racist citizens because delved into questions of survival. A hospital administrator called 3-1-1 to ask about how to sustain emergency power for patients who required electricity to live. I instantly knew this was way above my pay grade and I should not be the one responsible for answering their questions. However, all of the adults in the room were frantically busy so I couldn’t immediately transfer the phone call to someone with a driver’s license. So I put on my game face and adopted the fake it till you make it model. The only thing I definitively knew was that at no point could St. Luke’s know they were asking a 13-year-old girl how to maintain power for ventilators. The hospital told me it was running on back up generators, however since no one knew when the power would return there were questions about how to manage patient care if the generators became critically low on power. My first instinct was to say “I have no idea! I’m 13 and I have no clue how to maintain power for a whole ass hospital wing full of patients hooked up to machines.” As much as I wanted to spew out this honest reply, I knew it was absolutely not an option. So I made up the simplistic solution - find as many generators as possible - ask everyone in town for their generators to help keep one section of the hospital electrified and help patients stay alive. Fortunately this was enough of an answer for me to stall until an adult became available. After a few minutes I passed the phone off to Judie to field question about how exactly the city could support St. Luke’s keep power. Thankfully, St. Luke’s never knew they speaking to someone who hadn’t entered high school.
When it became dark City Hall had to move its operations over to the Cleveland Public Power building down the street. Although City Hall had grounded phone lines which allowed the 3-1-1 operations to function there wasn’t electricity at City Hall so as the sun fell it quickly became too dark to work there. In a makeshift situation room in Cleveland Public Power we watched my mom speak to Larry King on CNN and reassure the public that there were trained experts helping navigate the crisis on the Cleveland evening news. Sometime after her evening news appearances my mom held a meeting with her staff to get the latest updates on how the city was coping, including what was happening at the hospitals. Since my mom didn’t know I was still at City Hall, nor was she supposed to know under any circumstances that I was one of the “trained experts” manning the phone lines she just told the public about I was told to hide. I quietly slid under the table and remained crumpled up at people’s feet while her staff gave a run down of how the city was coping in the darkness. Updates included that St. Luke’s found a way to ensure power for life saving equipment. After the meeting someone was finally able to take me to my uncle’s house where I caught the tail end of the eat everything from the fridge party.
When my mom finally came up for air sometime around Sunday she took us out to eat at our favorite local diner Yours Truly. She asked us how we faired during the first day of the blackout, fully expecting to hear stories about barbecuing at my uncles and attending an impromptu astronomy lesson the high school astronomy teacher held on the baseball field in front of his house. When I began to regale her with tales of my time on the 3-1-1 line the look of befuddled confusion on her face was downright comical. She sat there in a stunned silence that I was at City Hall for hours without her knowing and that she had unintentionally told a small lie to the public about exactly who was on the other end of the 3-1-1 lines. She also confirmed that the decision to hide me under the table was a very astute call because had she known my whereabouts she would have been far less than amused.
When I look back on this experience I realize that the 2003 East Coast blackout was unexpectedly one of the defining experiences of my teen years because it was the first time that I really felt how unique my life was and is. Most of the media and stories around me talked about the blackout as a collective experience—millions of people experienced the blackout at the same time and threads of communal experiences traced throughout individual narratives. For hundreds of people the 2003 blackout was defined by a collective experiences such as sleeping on the sidewalk in Time Square to break the heat or eating outside with neighbors in impromptu block parties. However, my experience felt entirely unique. I can say with almost certain confidence that I was the only teenager stuck in City Hall of a major metropolitan area impacted by the black out that ended up working in crisis management. Although, who knows maybe there was a teenager in Toronto doing the same thing. It made me feel like there were parts of my life that were not necessarily relatable but that wasn’t a bad thing. We all have entirely unique experiences that define our personhood and mold us into the person we are. Often the unplanned moments when more than you expect is tossed onto your plate are the times where you have a chance to grow and learn. Sometimes life opens up an entirely unique opportunity and you have to just go along for the ride and hope there is a good story and improved bullshitting skills on the other end.
