Gridlock 2003 It's been one week to the day since the great Niagara-Mohawk grid failure--or was it the fault of First Energy in Akron?--and everything in the house works including the computer and the air conditioning. I've never been so grateful for the modern convenience of electrical power. Last Thursday a large chunk of Northeast and Midwest USA, my part of Ohio included, was left sweating in the dark to the old tune of August.
This column was written August 14th on lined notebook paper in the dim glow of a candle. A flashlight lit the way to candles and matches, but was too close to a civilized energy source to waste for long term use.
All over the neighborhood TVs remained mute while windows opened to a cricket serenade. Children read by candlelight, ate bread and peanut butter by candlelight, and listened like their great grandparents to a battery-powered radio by candlelight. It was hot, damn hot, but the dog didn't seem to notice, and the cats could not care less. Maybe they knew why the refrigerator no longer hummed--maybe they secretly harbored gluttonous thoughts as the contents of a freezer full of fish gradually thawed. No one on two legs dared to flush the toilet, knowing that once the tank emptied the first time, there would be no more flushing till the electric pump came back on.
The crickets seemed louder than ever before. The house took on the benign aspect of an eighteenth century conversation piece. Darkness spread far and wide, and the circle of light shrank to solitary points that couldn't even flicker for want of wind, and the sloth that stilled it. Some of us tried to retire early, but there was no sleeping in the stifling heat.
This was the picture in the suburbs, the countryside, the great sprawl of strip malls and subdivisions. Gainful employment ground to a halt long before the sun went down. Intersections were reduced to a trickle of four way stops because the traffic lights were out. Mindless entertainment vanished, leaving a vacuum and a whisper.
How--when--did we become so dependent on this convenience called electricity? When I wrote this, I could not dwell on the subject like I normally would, like I wanted to, because I was far too hot. What I would have given for a cold shower then. Or one of those desk top electric fans. If only the air conditioning had stirred from its prehistoric slumber.
Could this have been the work of terrorists? Apparently not, but maybe next time--and maybe next time is a far scarier thought. Was it the result of that new computer worm? No such luck. In retrospect, I'm afraid the big blackout of 2003 was nothing more and nothing less than the warning cough of an outmoded system--a power grid on its last legs and stretched to the limits.
