Big Blackout in the Big Apple!!! Is the Tiki Ohana okay?

Hey Inky, Manic, Tiki Chris and others in the Northeast and Midwest!

I'm sure you guys are shutout from TC right now, but we hope you're okay. This was the biggest power outage in US history and it appears on the news that many areas in New York still do not have power. Did you guys survive the blackout? We hope you made it home safely and that you're having mai tais in da candlelight.

Thinking of yous and sending you good mana.

Aloha,

Arty

IN THE ZEN OF STEN

[ Edited by: stentiki on 2003-08-15 00:08 ]

Yeah,

Good luck folks. It suddenly appeared as breaking news over here in the UK last night and still appears to be a problem now, the next morning.

The footage we saw of New Yorkers seemed to show people in very good spirits, so hopefully it'll have been a bit of an adventure rather than a hassle.

Trader Woody

I am just back online after having no power since thursday at 4:00... it seemed like fun until I realized I lived on the 29th floor of a condo. Oops. Walking up 29 floors in a pitch dark stairwell, with no flashlight, with bags of emergency supplies is proboably one of the braver things I have done this year!

It was so crazy, I had to call Mig in San fran to get the news on what the hell had happened to us cause there was no other way to find out!

We were even considering driving to Montreal last night just to get somwhere with power... (all of ontario from Ottawa to Windsor was down!). Instead my husband and I decided tyo stik it out and played a board game called 'Zombies' by candlelight and ate Pringles.

Anyway, today I get the pleasant task of throwing out everything in my fridge.

Thank god it's over! And I can flush my toilet now, woohoo!

Tikifish,
Do you have an electricity-powered toilet? Is that common?

-JTD

The water was not running for some reason, we had to hoard what was left!!! I think maybe you need electricity to get the water up to the 29th floor? I dunno! I do not know these things.

I am shocked more people havent responded to this thread... so wierd.

Perhaps the western-centricness of tiki central is finally showing?

You're right, we are amiss. I hope everyone affected is getting back to normal with a minimal loss. Guess we relaxed when we heard it wasn't terrorism and I had also heard that at least in the US, everyone was behaving themselves very commendably. Hope that has been true.

Being on the West coast I realized the severity of the situation on the news but not ONCE did they mention that toilets weren't flushing. Had I known I would have been much more concerned! Think of all those floaters becoming sinkers!

Written late Saturday, no evil intentions, sincerely signed fartsatune

It's amazing what you take for granted. I will never look at my toilet the same way again. It is now, in my mind, a beautiful shiny white flushing marvel of technology. Thank you, Thomas Crapper!

Today I have to go and buy food to replace everything in my fridge. I'm tired of Pringles.

My Father in Law drives the TTC (subway) in Toronto, but luckily he was above ground when it shut down. But the funny part is he got stuck on a corner on Eglington for like 6 hours Directing traffic because he still had his uniform on and everyone thought he was a traffic Cop!

I expected looting and mass pandamonium but I guess nothing like that really happened did it? There was an episode of 'Third Watch' where the power went out and people in NY went nuts, rioting and stealing because there was no electricy for burgler alarms or A/C. I guess when people get too hot they freak out.

Anything like that happen?

That was rough! I can't believe it....i had no water, no lights, no a/c, no elevator, and no tiki central! You can't imagine what this was like. My best friends got married on Sat and that was unbeleivable amounts of stress, with people flying in from all parts of the world, staying in hotels, sweating, climbing stairs, no food....The wedding was great though, it all pulled together at the last minute, Even my hula dance was flawless! :wink:

I am still in a complete daze. Arty, thanks for your thoughts! I am never taking any thing for granted again.

ps. Most high rises have water pumped to the top w/ electricity, thats why we had no water. Going to the bathroom was like using a port-o-john at a grateful dead concert....

Hey Inky, TikiFish and others. Glad to hear that all is well. Didn't mean to ignore the folks in Canada and the Midwest, but New York is like my second home now! I couldn't believe all the people on foot in the streets and I can't imagine being in the subway when the lights go low, Joe!

Sending good mana to all of you, always!

Glad to hear the wedding went well, Inky. I'm sure you blew them away with your superb hula dancing.

See you soon. 31 days and counting...

The Straight Dope sets things straight on high rise toilet physics (this example is the Sears Tower. Not quite the Saucer house, but the same principle applies).

"The real challenge in Sears Tower was not so much getting the water down--after all, gravity does most of the work--as getting it up there in the first place. Street pressure is only good for the first four or five floors in an ordinary building. Sears has a series of pumps and tanks located in the basement, the 31st floor, the 64th floor, and the 88th floor. Water is pumped up under high pressure from one tank to the next, and then drains to the faucets in bathrooms and other facilities below. A few fixtures operate directly off the high-pressure line by means of pressure-relief valves."

I just got back to So Cal from a long week in NYC.I was in the MET with my two small kids when the power went out. We were staying with in-laws in Jersey City. We walked for about six hours from one end of Manhattan to the other to get a ferry but when we got there we were told there were no ferries so we walked back across town to the Lincoln tunnel where we got a bus to the Meadowlands where they were dumping people off. Then got on another bus, then anotherbus took us to Penn Station in Newark where we finally put all our money together and got a taxi to Jersey City about seven hours later. It was quite an experience, but unless you were there or have lived in NYC you can't really understand the enormity of the whole thing. When we got back to California people here said oh yeah there was some sort of blackout or something, huh. We were earlier up on top of the Empire State Building, so I consider myself pretty lucky, I wouldn't have wanted to carry my four year old down 86 flights of stairs. What an end to a crazy week in a great city.

I was stuck on the 9th floor of the office building where I worked...we managed to find a couple of flashlights and journey down the stairwell in the dark....then I enjoyed the 10 mile ride home that took nearly 2 hours...I was quite amused by the gas line fights that occured on Friday....not much looting here in Detroit, some flooding and sewage back-up though....

hey folks & thanks for the concern stentiki! the blackout wasn't w/out inconveniences (especially the heat!) but was actually a rather pleasant change of pace. all the windows of the buildings on our block were candlelight & i actually saw stars above manhattan. i had a heaping amount of free ice cream from a local restaurant (it was going to melt anyway). the crime rate for the city was lower than average during the blackout too! for the most part everyone i saw made the most of it & had fun.

aloha,
chris