When the Lights Go Down in the City

Sunset in lower Manhattan, on November 2, 2012 during the blackout that followed Hurricane Sandy. By Felix Lipov @ Shutterstock.com

Recent power outages in Manhattan served to remind everyone of what losing electricity in a high-density city means. The NY Post reported:

Power outages struck much of Manhattan for five hours Saturday evening, plunging subway stations, Broadway theaters and skyscrapers in the heart of the Big Apple into darkness on the 42nd anniversary — nearly to the hour–of the 1977 blackout.

Officials said some 73,000 residents were without power at the height of the outage, which officials preliminarily blamed on an Upper West Side manhole fire affecting an underground transformer.

The power went out at around 7 p.m., a blackout originally confined to the 30 blocks west of Fifth Avenue between 72nd Street and 42nd Street.

The UK Independent reports that, amazingly, in the affected area, only a couple of skyscrapers had their own backup power systems. Dave Maclean wrote:

One of the worst-hit areas was the Theatre District – while many of nearby Times Square’s iconic electronic billboards were blacked out.

Eerie photographs circulated showing just a couple of skyscrapers glowing amid a sea of darkness – likely reliant on their own backup power generators.

Luckily, it only took hours to get the lights back; not enough time for the refrigerators to thaw out in the July city heat. What if it had taken longer? What if it had been winter and the cold had begun to set in like it did during Newport, RI’s gas outage last winter?

The tragic reality is, major cities like New York are not prepared for a prolonged power outage, and the whispers of chaos that appear during even small outages are nothing like what might take place in a protracted emergency.

During an EMP-type event, the last place you want to be unprepared is in a big city. In order to prepare for such extreme events, I suggest you first secure backup water supplies, and reliable communications. Then prepare yourself a survival kit that can help you get out of harm’s way. And for the ultimate step in self-preservation, I suggest you get your gun and your training now.

Originally posted on Your Survival Guy.