Today is the anniversary of the 2003 Blackout. Though it was extremely hot that night, it was also one of the best days I have ever experienced. I have heard some amazing stories from friends about that fateful day. I would like Canada (or Toronto) to turn the lights off for one day a year in the summer. It will remind us how special the comforts of our daily lives really are.
From today’s Globe and Mail:
Three years later, memories live on about the blackout that crippled northeastern North America.
After leaving work in Kensington Market in 2003, Ms. Carriere walked to the grounds of Central Technical School to stare at the stars through a powerful telescope owned by friends. “We saw Mars and the constellations,” she recalled. “It was pretty fantastic.”
Read more here.
UPDATE: I did not realize the first image I used was a fake, so I have replaced it with the above image. I appreciate the head’s up.
14 comments
I thought to myself that the satellite map posted here is the fake one that’s been floating around since 2003. Note how Ontario is mostly lit, and I don’t think all of New York State and most of New England actually went dark.
After a quick Google search, I found that I was right:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/blackout.asp
Why are you using a poor photoshop picture without identifying it as such?
The picture is a fake.
You know that picture is a fake right?
I agree, that night was magical, the way that everybody went outside and actually met their neighbours, sitting outside on laws with candles and guitars and melting ice-cream…
Not to belittle the spirit of your post, but the picture you used is a fake.
http://www.snopes.com/photos/blackout.asp
Although I missed the contents of our fridge & freezer, that night was spectacular.
The family just lay on a blanket on our driveway, and stared up into infinity.
That night will be with me the rest of my life.
I fixed the image.
It was a beautiful night for me as well. Hot, but amazing. Every night I miss the stars.
I have fond memories of the 2003 blackout as well. But I’m not sure that calculated, imposed blackouts would really remind people to appreciate the comforts we enjoy or to notice the stars and stillness of a city without electrical power. The black-out party of 2003 was very much a middle-class phenomenon, as is nostalgia for the event. Many people who lived in cramped high-rise apartments, and especially those who were elderly or ill or who had young children, or who worked in the city’s restaurant kitchens and factories, were less likely to enjoy the blackout because they were too busy trying to survive.
There are other ways to apply the lessons learned from the 2003 blackout. Turn off your own lights, air conditioners, and computers occasionally and sleep outside in the back yard or hold a late-night party in a local park. Contribute to organizations like FLAP (Fatal Light Awareness Program), a group that tries to get Toronto’s corporate building managers to turn off the lights at night.
But please don’t assume your own nostalgia for the 2003 blackout is necessarily shared by everyone in the city, or that turning the lights out for everyone would be a good way to celebrate its anniversary.
Well, the people who are in need shouldn’t have to take part, no doubt. I do do those other things you suggest regularly.
On the other hand, I do think most people in the city have good memories of the event. Even my wheelchair-bound mother and hobbled grandma, who lived a few floors up in a condo, had a great time. I lived on the 14th floor and had to carry larfge belongings up and down the stairs three or four times. I had to use a pay phone on the corner. I probably walked the full flight of stairs 10 times that night. I sweated buckets and couldn’t pee. There was collective hardship, for sure. I was not part of the middle class at the time but still had a great time.
Fair enough, Matthew. I guess experiences vary. I know at least one Toronto factory which kept its afternoon shift workers on site (if on shut-down) until their shift ended at 11:30, hoping the power would come on, and my sister struggled to keep her family cool in a sweltering sixth-floor apartment. My own views are undoubtedly coloured by my parents’ experience during the January 1998 ice storm in eastern Canada, which left them without power or phone for nearly a week in sub-zero weather, and the parallel hot-weather reality that my diabetic, asthmatic, heart-patient father (I see your hobbled grandma and raise you one quadruple-bypass father) cannot survive long without electricity in very humid weather.
But during the blackout in 2003 Peter and I wandered the Junction freely, drank beer in an alley with friends, and listened to neighbours across the street playing guitars and flutes. We slept under the bright stars that night. It was a gentle time for a lot of us, perhaps mostly because much of the city actually rested and saw and listened for an evening. Would I enjoy such an experience again? Certainly. But chances are it won’t happen during a warm August night but instead will leave us freezing and suffering in the middle of winter.
I rode my bike without any lights half across town.
Whee…. crazeee! Oh, the stars!
It was like peace for the first time.
There’s an excellent song by Toronto’s own Mike Ford (also the title of his first post-Fruvous solo album) called “Stars Shone on Toronto”, about that night. Everyone should check it out.
I had a better time at the black-out anniversary party then I did during the actual black-out.
My work had a generator, so we had light and internet and hot food and all that. I stayed there until about 9:30pm or 10pm, drove home on the darkened 401 and went to bed. The only difference to me was that I had to brush my teeth in the dark. No biggie, really. I wish I had a better story.
dmy, Are you sure you brushes your teeth?