(The Washington Post published the following story by Don Phillips and Sara Kehaulani Goo on its website on August 15.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — New York subways and commuter trains rolled to a halt, Amtrak service was canceled from Newark to Boston, numerous airports shut down, and rush-hour traffic was jammed by darkened streetlights after electric power grids failed yesterday afternoon across several eastern and central states and in Canada.
Thousands of subway commuters were trapped underground, and an unknown number of electrically powered commuter trains were stuck in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Bus service was disrupted in New York City, and the streets there appeared gridlocked.
As the evening wore on, resilient New Yorkers walked home, headed for bars or friends’ apartments, or otherwise made do. The major New York airports resumed limited operations early in the evening. By 8 p.m., Amtrak managed to get a few trains in and out of Pennsylvania Station from the south and west using power from the New Jersey power grid, although service to New Haven and Boston remained shut down, as did all the New York commuter railroads.
Authorities concentrated on evacuating thousands of commuters from subways and electrically operated commuter trains.
A group of transit workers outside the 59th Street/Columbus Circle station said that a train stopped 500 feet from the station when the power went out and 1,000 people were stuck for two hours with no light. Workers eventually brought passengers out of the front door of the train and out the tunnel. At least two elderly woman were too scared to walk down the tracks, so police officers came to calm them down.
With taxis and rental cars at a premium, people piled into cabs, two to the front seat and three in the back. A reporter said he saw one elderly woman being helped into a cab and somebody got out to give her a space.
Manhattan resident Ajit Kaicker said he began frantically dialing car-rental companies as soon as the lights went out. Avis was sold out. Hertz had one car but said its computers were down.
“I cajoled and pleaded, and finally they took my credit card information and manually entered it,” he said. He hopped into a Buick and drove home to his two children in Lower Manhattan.
Airports and air traffic control facilities have backup generators so they can continue to operate during power outages. But numerous airports, including those serving New York, lacked enough power to operate X-ray and metal-detection equipment for passenger security screening.
The Federal Aviation Administration blocked takeoffs across the country of flights destined for New York’s La Guardia and John F. Kennedy International and Newark’s Liberty International airports, as well as for Cleveland, Detroit, Ottawa and Toronto.
Major airlines canceled, delayed or diverted flights across the country yesterday, and the ripple effect will probably spill into today and possibly Saturday. Airlines yesterday scrambled to rearrange schedules and urged travelers with flights scheduled today to call to confirm that they are departing on time. The airports that experienced power losses included those in Albany and Rochester, N.Y.; Erie, Pa.; Lansing, Mich.; Cleveland; Detroit; Ottawa; and Toronto, as well as the three serving New York City.
By 8 p.m., New York’s airports had begun resuming flights, as some security checkpoints regained limited power on generators and in other cases as security screeners manually searched carry-on luggage and used handheld metal detectors.
“There are ways to keep some of the flow going through the checkpoint, but it’s significantly reduced because it’s very time consuming,” said Mark Hatfield, spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration. “I don’t know what tomorrow morning is going to look like.”
Some major airports scrambled yesterday to accommodate passengers waiting — or stuck overnight — in warm terminals with cots and bottled water.
Dozens of departing flights from Washington-area airports to the airports without power were canceled, including shuttle flights to New York. Otherwise, Washington area airports, which did not lose power yesterday, did not suffer many delays. “We don’t expect major bottlenecks here at BWI” today, said spokesman Jonathan Dean. “There’s relatively little impact.”
Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black said the passenger-rail system was able to provide limited service yesterday on the electrically powered Northeast Corridor between Washington and New York but initially could not operate into New York City’s Penn Station. Amtrak urged passengers not to travel north beyond Philadelphia.
Power was available for Amtrak trains between Boston and a point near New Haven, Conn., but Amtrak canceled service nonetheless because trains could not get into New Haven. Three trains were stranded — one train just short of the New Haven station and an Acela Express train at the Old Saybrook, Conn., station. Another train was trapped in the Bronx between the East River tunnels and New Rochelle, N.Y.
Metro North, New Jersey Transit and Long Island Rail Road canceled all service. Most of their trains are run by third-rail systems or overhead wire. But even diesel trains could not run because signal systems were out. Diesels were used mainly to move trains slowly to stations where passengers could at least disembark.
Long Island Rail Road spokesman Brian Dolan said 35 commuter trains were stranded, two of them in tunnels. The 4:04 p.m. train from Penn Station to Babylon, with about 1,000 people aboard, was stranded in the East River tunnel, but Dolan said police dispatched to the scene reported that everyone seemed to be taking things in stride. The train was eventually towed back to Penn Station.
Also stranded in a Brooklyn tunnel was the 3:57 p.m. train from Flatbush to Far Rockaway. That train also was towed out of the tunnel, with the passengers evacuating to a nearby White Castle restaurant.
The Transportation Department activated its Crisis Management Center, which operates out of the eighth floor of headquarters in downtown Washington, said spokesman Leonardo Alcivar. The center was upgraded after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Alcivar said, and has computer, satellite and secure telephone links with transportation systems nationwide.
Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta had been hopscotching the Southeast yesterday, awarding airport-improvement grants in Georgia, Florida and North Carolina, and flew back to Washington in the early evening to oversee the crisis center, Alcivar said.