I remember this well. It was a pretty hot August day. I left work before the power outage (otherwise I might have been trapped in an elevator) and got on a diesel powered commuter train in Hoboken with plenty of AC. So while I thought it weird we did not leave on time at 4:23, I had no idea there was a regional outage until maybe an hour after it happened. It took forever for the packed train to manually switch the tracks to get moving, we stopped at every station along the way, and I think I got home near 10PM at night. I was starving by the time I got off the train but discovered a great pizza parlor that had a wood-fired brick oven. It was delicious!
I had the day off to go upstate for the weekend. I hit the highway in the early afternoon rocking out to my own burned CD mixes without a clue of the chaos going on behind me. After a four hour drive I got to my hotel and during check in heard that news that I was lucky to have booked in advance bc every hotel in the Northeast was now at capacity thanks to people fleeing the city like rats on a sinking ship. Lucky me!
I remember this blackout well. My dad thought he caused it. He was cutting down a tree in our back yard and a branch fell just as the blackout hit. He assumed he took out just our house. He was upset, but figured he'd just call the company and fess up. Then he realized the whole street was down and panicked. Then he couldn't get through to the power company. It wasn't until we watched the evening news that we saw the entire NE was down. And my dad's branch didn't damage anything.
A former boss of mine was a kid in NYC during the 1977 blackout. He had left the house and the blackout hit immediately afterward. When he came back in a few minutes later the first thing his mother said was, "What did you just do?!?" "Ma, I was taking out the garbage!!" Now if he was anything like me as a kid, which I strongly suspect he was, this wasn't an entirely unreasonable question.
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 nothing is ever 100% certain. I like to think in another dimension my father did take down the entire northeastern power grid.
Yeah, when "Forgot to turn on something" has this big of an impact, the procedure should be somewhat like airlines do, with checklists and whatnot so that everyone is running the same check list every time.
I can't believe that that was one of the key factors. Can you imagine that press conference? "Sorry, everyone. We've been looking into what happened to reduce the possibility of it ever happening again. After examining key factors, such as Gene forgetting to turn his switch back on before lunch, we've made changes to the procedures currently in place. The biggest change will be that lunch will be had in everyone's normal working space, so that Gene can eat his burger while turning on important switches
What's interesting is the difference in how places reacted. Where I lived in Ottawa, supermarkets started having free, spontaneous parking lot barbeques for the whole community with all the food which they had to get rid of after the emergency generators ran out. On the other hand, in Toronto stores hired armed security guards to stand by their dumpsters lest anyone get anything free before paying to have it buried in landfill.
There are probably laws that make it these businesses’ responsibility to stop people from going through their garbage. They could be fined for giving expired food products to people. And if someone ate something out of their dumpster and got seriously sick they would definitely sue the business for injuries and win.
@@kayzeaza There are Good Samaritan laws specifically created to protect businesses which donate food. Otherwise soup kitchens couldn't operate. The reality is it's just greedy capitalists who hate the idea of someone getting something for free on basic principle, so much that they'll actually _pay_ to stop hungry people from getting food. In Vancouver, some businesses routinely slash all the food they throw away with a box cutter, then pour bleach all over it to prevent anyone from salvaging it.
My sister was a baby during the 1977 NYC blackout/riot. In 2003, I was home for the summer after graduating college until I got my own place in the fall. My parents freaked out in the blackout. We got in the car and drove until we found a hotel with power in Connecticut. Unfortunately, I missed my chance to enjoy the 2003 blackout in what was a VERY different NYC. Instead of a riot, the city threw a party as all the restaurants gave away their food that would have gone bad without refridgeration. My brother and his wife had some trouble though. He was on the subway at the time and was one of many who had to exit the tunnels via a manhole. His wife had to walk home over the Brooklyn Bridge. She had done the same thing 2 years earlier on 9/11. She had the most NYC reaction ever: "Next disaster I'm taking the Manhattan Bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge is too crowded."
Yeah, so why, with all the disasters that happened as a consequence of the power outage is he focusing on the Netflix?? If it didn't even exist at that time, why is he pointing out that people couldn't watch it? Obviously, if the company didn't exist no one could watch it! That seems totally redundant. I haven't learned a thing from this presentation. Ugh SMH
@@jessicatriplev9802 Netflix existed. He was wrong. I had already been a member for years. I was getting DVD's by mail from them since I was a college freshman in 1999/2000. They didn't start doing streaming until the technology caught up to the idea in 2007 (which is what he really meant). But according to their CEO, that was the plan from day 1. As he said, "that's why we called it netflix and not dvd by mail flix."
Even though I was in ohio at the time of this blackout, I had no idea it even happened. I was "camping" in a rented cottage with my family that had its own power supply somehow. We came back to hear how everyone else had a terrible time while my family was sipping hot chocolate and going on nature walks.
Ah this is amazing! My family had the same experience We happened to leave for a 4 day canoe camping trip the morning before all this happened. When we got back we didn't believe it was as bad as people said until we opened our fridge and half of it was spoiled food.
I remember this one. I had moved to NYC from abroad one year before. I remember two things from then: One was that I was confused, I thought electricity DID NOT go out in the US. The second was that ppl were freaking out. I should have figured out that electricity not normally going out was why ppl were freaking out but to my 13-year-old self, who was used to regular blackouts, everyone freaking out was confusing.
I remember that. I worked in TV. The was a huge problem - the ads WERE broadcast, so the advertisers had to pay, but no one saw them, so they didn't want to. :)
@@vipvip-tf9rw In Europe they wouldn't have to pay, because the spot price is based on rating, but in US it's fixed, so they paid. But they've got discounts on future ads.
@@vipvip-tf9rw Well - the question is - how far fairness would go? Would a producer give a discount to a TV station, because no one could watch? To do that, would the actor and the equipment rental company give him discounts? From their perspective, the gig was all done and paid for half a year ago and they've spent the money already... There were lots of problems there: that one evening took many months, if not years, to solve.
@@jvesoft well, should airlines return money if they canceled flight, Yes, but fuel costs are the same, and aircrafts didn't became cheaper, every company should have some spare money for this type of situations
I remember the 2003 blackout in the Toronto and GTA. This was the 2nd time in history the US power grid tripped the Ontario one. People were jumping into the streets the direct traffic, stores with freezers gave out ice cream and water to the massive amount of people that had to walk home. People saw the milky way over the city for the first time. Some advertising signs had their own generator (I think LG) and got flak for being on. Glad it happened in the summer vs the winter.
I was living in Ohio at the time this happened. Funny thing is, I was right by where this happened. The only issue we had was no water for a couple hours and that's it. Everyone else got it much worse
Yeah, but why, with all the disasters that happened as a consequence of the power outage is he focusing on the Netflix?? If it didn't even exist at that time, why is he pointing out that people couldn't watch it? Obviously, if the company didn't exist no one could watch it! That seems totally redundant. I haven't learned a thing from this presentation. Ugh SMH
I was working in a restaurant as a cook in Hamilton, Ontario when this happened. The whole kitchen went dark. We sat around doing nothing until the manager got a battery-operated radio to find out what's going on. When he heard that the power was out in New York too, he sent us all home.
I was in Mississauga. When we heard that the entire east coast was out, we thought it was the opening act of a serious attack. 9/11/2001 was still fresh in everyone’s minds.
I worked 10 years as a turbine commissioning engineer all over the world. I would love more exposure to the hidden world of power generation and power plants. By the way, the equipment you show when talking about diesel generators is a unit transformer. Sam, if you’d like more info on power generation and some spicy stories, let me know :) Have a great day!
In Manhattan after the blackout, there were mountains of spoiled food from restaurant refrigerators lining the streets. So many rats and the smell was gag inducing. However, I did get an "I survived the blackout" t-shirt for my troubles :}
I was a teenager in Detroit when this happened. It was honestly a lot of fun (for me) and my neighborhood turned into a low key block party. Sharing stuff with neighbors, everyone grilling, kids outside, etc.
I remember this mainly because at night, there was no light pollution and could see the Milky Way from my own house in Northeast Ohio. It was a sight I’ll never forgot
I remember when this happened. I was 11 years old and living on Long Island, NY. It wasn't even a big issue for our suburban condo complex. It was actually kinda fun. Many of the neighbors brought out tiki torches to line the streets and front yards, and we kinda just hung out and BBQ'd.
I remember it like it was yesterday. My shift was just ending when it happened. The commute home across the top of Toronto was odd: no radio stations. I then crossed from top to bottom, 401 to DVP, through the city, and every traffic light was out. Strangers started calling out to one another, asking for information. I took photos of the mass exodus of pedestrians from the core on Yonge St. Once back with family and friends, we discussed if this might have been another 9-11. We discussed "how long"... how long could the power stay out before the whole system collapsed, and couldn't be recovered. Scary times.
I remember when this happened! I was in NYC and it was both amazing and terrible. It was amazing because everyone was giving away free food and people could see the stars. It was terrible because I fell and broke my arm and couldn't go to the hospital and had to be entertained with a battery powered TV.
Oh man, this was one of the most pivotal moments of my childhood- the first time I remember ever seeing the stars like that as a kid who grew up in NYC. It was so quiet! I spent a long time on my apartment's roof just looking on in awe. My dad took the subway to work and had to spend the night at his job at Petco :0
i remember being really young when this happened. my dad had a portable tv that ran on the car lighter/charger thing and i remember us being the only ones who could watch the news on our half of the street
I had just started work at the Domino's I worked for, and just as we were putting the second order for the day in the oven (and the first one came out), the power went off. I recall calling the customer and letting them know what happened and if they still wanted their pizza once the power was restored (they didn't), then off to deliver the one order I got that day. Upon returning, that was when we found out this went beyond just a simple little outage. I managed to buy a case of water at the drug store in the same plaza, then went home after managing to get a hold of my mother. I then went over to her house and napped for a while, then got up and returned to my apartment, where I was so bored out of my mind I went out for a drive...when I found out on the radio that a city about 20 miles to the west had power and everything, so off I went to get gas, have a drink or two, and try to buy Taco Bell...only to be the second in line to be too little too late to order, and then I went home to go to bed. Once the power returned by late morning, I called work to ask, and they said, yes their power was back and if I wanted to come in. Hell yeah I did! I worked the entire day that day to make up for the previous day.
I remember when this happened. It was pretty fun as I was a teenager hanging out with my friends in the middle of summer, and we decided that swimming and going out for long walks (and being teenagers - causing trouble) was the best solution. Thankfully we were on a small lake side town with a big rural area around said town and all the beaches we could want. Power came back on the next morning, and back to video games we went.
Growing up in Lake County, Ohio (which Eastlake resides within), I remember this all too well with multiple days without power. And yes, FirstEnergy is still horrible at their main job to this day. P.S. - "before any of us were born??!" Way to make a millennial feel ancient.
I was in college when it happened. I remember the power went out in the co-op house I was living in at the time, I went and sat in my car with the engine running for a little while to get cool, took a cell phone call from my dad (he lives in another state that wasn't affected by the blackout) who asked if I was out of power, and that was the first I'd realized that it wasn't just limited to my own city. We would lose power at least briefly pretty frequently in the house where I grew up because our little corner of the rural grid was vulnerable to weather disruptions, it never occurred to me to go looking for how widespread an outage was.
I can remember how much more stunning the night sky was with no lights around for hundreds of miles. I really hope to see the night sky like that again some day.
I was a kid in Brooklyn when this blackout happened. What was so amazing to me was being able to see the full starry night sky. Where I live you can see a few stars at most during the night. Seeing the full night sky in Brooklyn was a trip
I remember this. I was young. I remember being mad that my parents got Dunkin one morning and they didn’t get us any donuts lmao (little did I know that they only had enough generator power to run coffee makers and that’s it) . We had to go to a family friend across town to take showers. I also remember people hearing rumors that it was another terrorist attack (grew up right outside NYC). What a crazy time, indeed.
I remember the blackout! We were just passing our 1 year ark immigrated to Toronto Canada (I was 10 years old at the time)! I remember how crazy it was trying to get food, the POS were not working because they needed electricity. We went to the Rabba in Meadowvale to get some bread, and the guy was giving it out for free because he was helping people out who didn't have cash. Our AC was not working and it was 28°c or something high and we wanted to sit in the car for some AC but were running out of gas. I remember in school we had to write about our experience through the blackout, and my story was awarded something for it. What a simpler time. Even though we didn't have our TV or computer working, it was still just an amazing experience. No one was sad or stressed. The neighbors came together to help each other out, and we all made the best of it.
I was born in '91... My area was still recovering from the shock of 9/11 and the Spaceshuttle Columbia disaster. People started fearing it was the result of another attack. Our local hospitals didn't have the generator capacity and had to choose between life support and climate control, which is a loose loose when you have people coming in with heat related ailments and inpatients sucking down IV bags like they're Gatorade. My neighborhood was out of power for 3 days because the surge from TMI ramping up fried the "revolutionary" (experimental) underground power lines and crews had bigger problems to contend with. The early '00's were a bit too exciting.
The image is hosted by google under their "user content" site.I'm not sure how they got it to display as an image. It probably has something to do with the Emoji unicode. 🎆🎇🎆🎆🎇🎇🎆🎇🎇🎇🎆🎆
That line was totally bogus. ruclips.net/video/yR2lgxy-htU/видео.html Netflix was simply a different type of company at the time, but the name already existed.
I remember it, I lived in Ontario and I remember the fallout afterwards when a bunch of American politicians blamed Canada for it. Meanwhile Canadian politicians were blaming Canada and the US because they had no clue but still wanted to say sorry like it was their fault part of the time.
I remember this vividly. I was in Syracuse Ny talking to a customer in Chicago and we both lost power at the exact same time. We were a bit dumbfounded how so far apart yet both lost power
I was 17, thank you, and lived outside of Ann Arbor Michigan at the time. Thankfully that was the far western edge of the blackout. We drove about 60 minutes west where they had power and had dinner at a restaurant. All was good.
This blackout also affected a small portion of eastern Nova Scotia. I had a gig caused by a power outage and no one seemed to be able to pinpoint its source, but it ran on the same grid as those further west.
I was working at a Boy Scout Summer Camp, so the only thing I noticed was the Kitchen stoped being operational. Thank You Red Cross for sending trucks out with hot food for us and our campers.
Really enjoyed this one. You should look into the Queens NY Blackout of 2006, which although wasn't as big, was the longest blackout in NYC history lasting 8 days. Also it was the time when we were misled of the true scope of the blackout, not realizing one Con Edison customer could be an entire apartment building.
Nearly the same initial issue for the 2021Texas Electric issue, what seperates the two is that ERCOT immediately told power providers to start "conserving" and shedding load. Once plants came back online, so did the electricity.
Here's a funny story: in Iran, one of the powerplant's technicians hit the manual trip button as a dare (by another technician) and that caused a country wide black out pretty much like what you described. It was such a big problem that the Minister of Energy got involved.
I got stuck on the first hill of a rollercoaster when the power went out. We were about to go over the first hill of the magnum at cedar point when it stopped. Had to walk all the way down. Drove all the way back to Michigan with almost no gas stations open. Got home with no power there either. Great time.
There were more than a few other problems due to lack of maintenance. For example, Ontario Hydro's control station had 2 generators. The first one started, failed. The second one? It was missing parts that were used to fix the first. There were a lot of changes in the next few years, which are probably now slowly drifting back to the old ways...
Here in Mississauga, someone was stabbed on my lawn during the blackout. I was a kid, we lived in an solid neighbourhood, no crime and in the suburbs. But it ended up taking the ambulance too long to get to him and then to the hospital that he died on the way.
I loved in New York at the time. I was at work and we were all getting ready to stay late to get get a big deal done on time. The blackout ruined that. The traffic was at a stand still. Thousands of people trying to walk home. Remarkably everyone was patient with the situation and just did what needed to get done.
Not too far from Eastlake, OH, I was driving home from the library, listening to the radio trying to see if I won tickets to the Michael W Smith concern, when the station went off. I thought it was just the station, then I noticed the traffic lights were off. The community had brown outs all of the time, and I didn't think anything of it till I drove to a neighboring community grocery store and the power was off as well. The grocery store had back up generators, but limited registers. And yes they had discounted ice cream too. At least I had plenty of books to read by the many flashlights and candles I owned. It wasn't till the next day that I realised how widespread it was. And yes I won tickets to the concert :)
Hey I remember this one. I was pretty young so I mostly just thought it was kinda cool. Sat around playing my gameboy, which is what I would have been doing power or no power, and when night came everyone went outside to see the sky since there was suddenly no light pollution.
I lived in Metro Detroit at the time, and our neighborhood had a habit of losing power at the drop of the hat, lots of trees and commonly blown transformers. My dad went out and managed to get one of the last gas generators he could find and once we got it running we managed to find out the true scale of the blackout. That said, for some reason, our neighborhood was without power for 3 days. I was really glad he got that generator, but those 3 days taught me a lot about how to handle an extended outage.
very interesting topic. I live in NY and I remember thus vividly. it was in august and I remember it just being sweltering hot outside. I remember going to bed that night in just my skivvies lying on my back on my bed motionless in order to try to find some sort of relief
Oh, this one is a *fascinating* story. Kinda put the real world consequences of technology into perspective - I hope we've learned at least a few lessons since. Honestly it's also a great setup for a movie plot or something (and I think I've seen it incorporated as backstory before, I think that was in the Watch Dogs games).
I live in Southwestern Ontario. I was university at the time and had just finished my last exam for the term when I got home. Shortly afterwards the power went out. This was late afternoon. I had use the radio in my car to get an update and found out just how large the power failure actually was. We were fortunate in that we got power back before midnight but others took days or more.
@@sheldonpetrie3706 I remember that, too. I think Ice Storm '98 was arguably worse, as the infrastructure damage was so extreme. And yes, I lived through that too. O.O
I remember that blackout. I lived in Nova Scotia and was on vacation with my boyfriend to visit his father in British Columbia. We were due to fly back that day or the day after but our flights got cancelled and I absolutely panicked because I had just graduated highschool and was heading to university in a couple of weeks. Since I didn't know how long we would need to wait for another flight, I thought I wouldn't be able to move into my university dorm on time. In the end, we got another flight in a few days, so I was still able to pack and move into my dorm.
Just like to point out that at 1:27 you showed the city of Cincinnati Ohio(home of the 2022 AFC Champion Cincinnati Bengals) but this occurred on the entire other side of the state in Eastlake Ohio which is only famous for causing a giant blackout in 2003 that you should do a video about sometime.
I remember this one. I was living in Sarnia, ON at the time, AKA Chemical Valley. I had a volunteer meeting held in a park along the St. Clair and I'll never forget looking over to the plants to see an especially dark cloud of something spewing from the plants that afternoon.
@@BigBoss-sm9xj Oh, it was just increased flairing to stablize everything. It's normal, but at the time, all the plants had to do it; and with the Chemical Valley being home to at least three major oil refineries (Sarnia-Lambton was the birthplace of the Canadian oil industry, with Imperial Oil being the biggest notable name to have been founded in Sarnia) and various other plastics, fertilizers and other chemicals within about a five kilometer radius, it was excessive during the Blackout.
Correction, the grid in Ohio is not covered by MISO. It is currently covered by PJM Interconnection. Northeast Ohio, in the ATSI zone, didn’t join until after the blackout regardless
I remember this. When the power went out I was in the back room at work It was so dark. Luckily the generator kicked in so it was only for a few seconds, but the store ended up losing tons of money on the refrigerated food that was not on the back of generator... The worst part was that it was in the middle of a heatwave. No AC in a humid Michigan August, not fun.
I was 8, southern Jersey. I remember taking a walk outside with my family and dog. Plenty of the towns people were doing the same thing. We had no idea what was going on lol. My biggest concern was how am I going to charge my GBA SP?! So I conserved it by playing it with no back light and using a hand cranked flashlight lol. Forgot all about that until this video. Thank you
As a power systems engineer in the Northeast, this video was a surprisingly good regurgitation of the Wikipedia entry on the 2003 Blackout, which is exactly what makes this channel special.
My dads told me a story about this (I was 5), he and my grandfather were standing on the dock of our shop and could see the nuclear plant near us puffing out yellow smoke, they had a few minutes of panic
I remember that day amazingly well. I got home from school and was watching The Simpsons at 4pm and it was the episode where Bart and Milhouse run the Android's Dungeon. I then tried my TV about four or five times before giving up. I was 13 at the time, going to be 14 that October. I'll be 33 this October.
I remember this, I was 12, and we used our camping gear to cook up all the perishable food, and the stars were just incredible. Happy childhood memories
I remember this. CNN was interviewing literal random people off the street in New York to ask them if they thought it was terrorism, and treating these literal random people as authorities on the subject.
I remember this happening. I was camping with my troope on the Connecticut River and we didn't find out that everyone lost power in the region til we got back when the power was back on.
I remember when this happened - is was after 9/11 too. Some people who had walked out of the city after the attack had to walk out over the bridges again... lots of fun.
3:29, not to mention that it was the start of evening commutes in large cities, so traffic signals were down which caused backups. I lived on a busy one-way street when this happened, and I remember the street being a parking lot for over an hour.
I remember this! I was eleven and we neighborhood kids were already been outside playing baseball. Our parents, and the other adults on our street, just came outside and hung out while we kept playing. Everyone knew something funky had happened, but it was a nice summer day, so no one really cared.
So why, with all the disasters that happened as a consequence of the power outage is he focusing on the Netflix?? If it didn't even exist at that time, why is he pointing out that people couldn't watch it? Obviously, if the company didn't exist no one could watch it! That seems totally redundant. I haven't learned a thing from this presentation. Ugh SMH
I was living in Cincinnati at the time, and the lights only flickered there for a few moments. The local grid was cut off just in time from the grid in the more northern areas of Ohio, so we managed to keep our lights on.
My family was on road trip vacation in Ontario (from the US) at the time. And since info still wasn't that available back in 03 we just assumed we got unlikely that town. Until the next one town was out too, then the next.
I'm from Cleveland, but I didn't know all this was happening because I was living in Virginia at the time. I saw this on the news while I sat in the waiting room of the ER while my girlfriend was being treated and I distinctly remember the vending machine not taking my dollar and I was hungry as fuck for 4 hours while I waited. Funny the weird shit you remember.
RealLifeLore and HAF doing lights on the same day! Now I'm just waiting on that super lazy Wendover guy to tell me about the logistics about light distribution!
I remember when this happened. I was 18 and warching the Powerpuff Girls when the power went off. The McDonald's my sister and i worked at had powered windows for the drive thru and when the power went off the window was stuck half way. My sister who was a manager had a wonderful task of sitting overnight at the McDonald's to make sure no one broke in.
I was living in upstate NY at the time and we had several plants in the area. The nuclear ones tripped off and wouldn't be back on line for a couple days. The NG plant was 'black start' capable and came back within an hour and it fed some old fuel-oil plants. Man, I still remember those long-idle stacks suddenly belching out some black smoke as they fired up those oil-fired boilers that had been idle for a long time. But they were glad to have them available and we got power back that night.
1:20 - okay no this is a bit misleading and dangerous. American circuit breakers are not there to prevent harm, they are simply there to protect the wires in your house from overheating. and jamming a fork into an outlet will probably not even trip a circuit breaker at all. it'll just shock you to death with no obstruction. it probably won't pull enough power to trip, but that power is still enough to kill. or it takes another path and isn't detected at all. you could be taking 1700w at 120v straight through the heart and your circuit breaker would literally be fine with it. I know this is probably trivial and dumb but I would hate anybody to walk away from that actually thinking that sticking metal in an outlet would just trip a breaker.
And because of that moment in my childhood when the power went out for hours during summer break, I now keep lots of charged batteries for lights, fans, and electronics.
The "2003, before any of us were born" line, hurts. Because I know a lot of your viewers were not born yet, but I remember that blackout. I live in CT and we had no power.
I remember this. Our power was out for 2 days. It was super hot outside and we didn't have AC. Our house had a water pump so after about a day, we ran out of water. It was inconvenient but wasn't too bad. I was a kid then and have experienced similar issues as an adult.
Interistingly, in 2003 we also had a nation wide blackout here in Italy, and for broadly the same reason. It was due to ground faults in two particularly critical grid connectors (between Italy and Switzerland) that were being overloaded. Once they opened they initiated a cascade failure propagating to all the other interconnectors between the Italian grid and the rest of the ten UCTE, leaving us cut off from the rest of Europe and a massive 6.6GW short out of a 27GW load. The official report has the precise timeline of events - once the failure started, it took exactly 2 minutes and 30 seconds for the entire grid to collapse. In our case the operators _knew_ what was happening, but they had no way to stop it in time.
I was actually in Gettysburg PA on vacation with my family when this happened. We missed getting the blackout there, but at home in NJ everyone got it.
The book Lights Out by Ted Koppel highlights many of the risks presented to the power grid in the United States. Fascinating read if you want to know more about the copious issues found in the US power grid system.
I was in NYC that day. It was interesting trying to get out of the city with no traffic lights. (We’d driven in.) Random people started directing traffic with no coordination.
I had to take a double take when I saw this video in my sub box, as the thumbnail is very similar to RealLifeLore's latest video, and I thought they just did a reupload without deleting the older video lol
It's crazy that subway cars don't have the minimal battery they would need to get to the next station. But hey, the MTA can't even get their trains to stop in the right spot so they can put in gates to prevent people from getting pushed in front of trains every few weeks.
Only recently Shinkansen N700s got batteries powerful enough to travel to nearest station during a power outage. It will take time for that technically to trickle down to regular subways.
Yes, I remember this. That day a friend and I had planned a trip into NY City to go see movie at the IMAX. That afternoon the power went out at work. This happened occasionally at work as we periodically blew the line fuses. So we decided to head off early for out movie. It first we did not notice much since we were on the freeway but as we kept driving we noticed something seemed wrong. Eventually we turned around and headed home. Our kids really liked it because they got off school early and several stores were giving away free ice cream. As an Engineer I read the story of what happened and the whole thing was so preventable (and when you look at it, it was doomed to happen sometime). Designing a system that requires everyone to not make mistakes is doomed to learn the consequence of that choice.
@@bristoled93 I don't remember exactly. What I remember we started noticing something was wrong after about 20min of driving. Normally you can see traffic lights and stuff from the freeway so that might have been it but likely we heard something on the radio. We were almost to Whit Plains before we finally turned around.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
I remember this well. It was a pretty hot August day. I left work before the power outage (otherwise I might have been trapped in an elevator) and got on a diesel powered commuter train in Hoboken with plenty of AC. So while I thought it weird we did not leave on time at 4:23, I had no idea there was a regional outage until maybe an hour after it happened. It took forever for the packed train to manually switch the tracks to get moving, we stopped at every station along the way, and I think I got home near 10PM at night. I was starving by the time I got off the train but discovered a great pizza parlor that had a wood-fired brick oven. It was delicious!
Interesting story! I find random circumstances such as this fascinating, thanks for sharing!
When autonomous systems are unavailable it is regulatory to stop at every station to inform the station master
I had the day off to go upstate for the weekend. I hit the highway in the early afternoon rocking out to my own burned CD mixes without a clue of the chaos going on behind me. After a four hour drive I got to my hotel and during check in heard that news that I was lucky to have booked in advance bc every hotel in the Northeast was now at capacity thanks to people fleeing the city like rats on a sinking ship. Lucky me!
I'm also in the "I was born" category.
Hehe, thank god (or whom/whatever) for small favours, huh?
I remember this blackout well. My dad thought he caused it. He was cutting down a tree in our back yard and a branch fell just as the blackout hit. He assumed he took out just our house. He was upset, but figured he'd just call the company and fess up. Then he realized the whole street was down and panicked. Then he couldn't get through to the power company. It wasn't until we watched the evening news that we saw the entire NE was down. And my dad's branch didn't damage anything.
Lol great timing
That is hilarious
A former boss of mine was a kid in NYC during the 1977 blackout. He had left the house and the blackout hit immediately afterward. When he came back in a few minutes later the first thing his mother said was, "What did you just do?!?"
"Ma, I was taking out the garbage!!"
Now if he was anything like me as a kid, which I strongly suspect he was, this wasn't an entirely unreasonable question.
Okay, but can we really be 100% certain the branch wasn't also part of it?
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 nothing is ever 100% certain. I like to think in another dimension my father did take down the entire northeastern power grid.
"an employee forgot to turn it back on, and went to lunch" the entire world's infrastructure is all in the hands of people like this lmao
Yeah, when "Forgot to turn on something" has this big of an impact, the procedure should be somewhat like airlines do, with checklists and whatnot so that everyone is running the same check list every time.
Yep. Like the guy who has a work phone but goes to lunch and forgets it. So annoying!
I can't believe that that was one of the key factors. Can you imagine that press conference?
"Sorry, everyone. We've been looking into what happened to reduce the possibility of it ever happening again. After examining key factors, such as Gene forgetting to turn his switch back on before lunch, we've made changes to the procedures currently in place. The biggest change will be that lunch will be had in everyone's normal working space, so that Gene can eat his burger while turning on important switches
😂
Hawaii missle alarm
What's interesting is the difference in how places reacted. Where I lived in Ottawa, supermarkets started having free, spontaneous parking lot barbeques for the whole community with all the food which they had to get rid of after the emergency generators ran out. On the other hand, in Toronto stores hired armed security guards to stand by their dumpsters lest anyone get anything free before paying to have it buried in landfill.
Damn 😂
Toronto, the city of ultra-capitalist socialists.
There are probably laws that make it these businesses’ responsibility to stop people from going through their garbage. They could be fined for giving expired food products to people. And if someone ate something out of their dumpster and got seriously sick they would definitely sue the business for injuries and win.
@@kayzeaza Bingo.
@@kayzeaza There are Good Samaritan laws specifically created to protect businesses which donate food. Otherwise soup kitchens couldn't operate. The reality is it's just greedy capitalists who hate the idea of someone getting something for free on basic principle, so much that they'll actually _pay_ to stop hungry people from getting food.
In Vancouver, some businesses routinely slash all the food they throw away with a box cutter, then pour bleach all over it to prevent anyone from salvaging it.
Not gonna lie, "Northeast Blackout" sounds like an awesome name for a metal band.
I can hear the harsh recording of a Line 6 Spider/BC Rich warlock combo alrighty
@@cranklabexplosion-labcentr8245 Slap a metal zone pedal on that too
Lol
Ooh, I should steal that!
sounds more like a strain of weed to me
My sister was a baby during the 1977 NYC blackout/riot. In 2003, I was home for the summer after graduating college until I got my own place in the fall. My parents freaked out in the blackout. We got in the car and drove until we found a hotel with power in Connecticut.
Unfortunately, I missed my chance to enjoy the 2003 blackout in what was a VERY different NYC. Instead of a riot, the city threw a party as all the restaurants gave away their food that would have gone bad without refridgeration.
My brother and his wife had some trouble though. He was on the subway at the time and was one of many who had to exit the tunnels via a manhole. His wife had to walk home over the Brooklyn Bridge.
She had done the same thing 2 years earlier on 9/11. She had the most NYC reaction ever: "Next disaster I'm taking the Manhattan Bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge is too crowded."
That's a super interesting and sorta scary story. How much cities are crippled without electricity.
Gotta say, the restaurants were pretty dang smart to use the the blackout as an opportunity to generate free publicity.
Yeah, so why, with all the disasters that happened as a consequence of the power outage is he focusing on the Netflix?? If it didn't even exist at that time, why is he pointing out that people couldn't watch it? Obviously, if the company didn't exist no one could watch it! That seems totally redundant. I haven't learned a thing from this presentation. Ugh SMH
Wow, that 1977 blackout is an interesting story. Crazy how different two blackouts can be.
@@jessicatriplev9802 Netflix existed. He was wrong. I had already been a member for years. I was getting DVD's by mail from them since I was a college freshman in 1999/2000. They didn't start doing streaming until the technology caught up to the idea in 2007 (which is what he really meant). But according to their CEO, that was the plan from day 1. As he said, "that's why we called it netflix and not dvd by mail flix."
Even though I was in ohio at the time of this blackout, I had no idea it even happened. I was "camping" in a rented cottage with my family that had its own power supply somehow. We came back to hear how everyone else had a terrible time while my family was sipping hot chocolate and going on nature walks.
@Hilda Kimina SHUT
That's hilarious. It's like waking up from a two-day coma or something.
Lol that sounds amazing. At least you guys where enjoying yourselves.
LMAO that's awesome.
Ah this is amazing! My family had the same experience
We happened to leave for a 4 day canoe camping trip the morning before all this happened. When we got back we didn't believe it was as bad as people said until we opened our fridge and half of it was spoiled food.
I remember this one. I had moved to NYC from abroad one year before. I remember two things from then:
One was that I was confused, I thought electricity DID NOT go out in the US. The second was that ppl were freaking out. I should have figured out that electricity not normally going out was why ppl were freaking out but to my 13-year-old self, who was used to regular blackouts, everyone freaking out was confusing.
Congrats on the Bills
It could have also been because near two years earlier was 9/11
I remember that. I worked in TV. The was a huge problem - the ads WERE broadcast, so the advertisers had to pay, but no one saw them, so they didn't want to. :)
Did they get compensation?
@@vipvip-tf9rw In Europe they wouldn't have to pay, because the spot price is based on rating, but in US it's fixed, so they paid. But they've got discounts on future ads.
@@jvesoft thanks, it would be unfare if they paid full price and nobody watched it
@@vipvip-tf9rw Well - the question is - how far fairness would go? Would a producer give a discount to a TV station, because no one could watch? To do that, would the actor and the equipment rental company give him discounts? From their perspective, the gig was all done and paid for half a year ago and they've spent the money already...
There were lots of problems there: that one evening took many months, if not years, to solve.
@@jvesoft well, should airlines return money if they canceled flight, Yes, but fuel costs are the same, and aircrafts didn't became cheaper, every company should have some spare money for this type of situations
I remember the 2003 blackout in the Toronto and GTA. This was the 2nd time in history the US power grid tripped the Ontario one. People were jumping into the streets the direct traffic, stores with freezers gave out ice cream and water to the massive amount of people that had to walk home. People saw the milky way over the city for the first time. Some advertising signs had their own generator (I think LG) and got flak for being on. Glad it happened in the summer vs the winter.
I would have LOVED to be able to see the Milky Way with all the light pollution gone.
Oh for sure! A massive blackout in the GTA in winter would be catastrophic!
of cource ads need a backup generator, what would we do without ads?
Toronto and Grand Theft Auto
@@TheGrooseIsLoose was about to say the same thing
I was living in Ohio at the time this happened. Funny thing is, I was right by where this happened. The only issue we had was no water for a couple hours and that's it. Everyone else got it much worse
We’re had no power for a few hours, no big deal.
Same here. No interruption. Never been about it. Filed under oopsy poopsie, not my problem
Yeah, but why, with all the disasters that happened as a consequence of the power outage is he focusing on the Netflix?? If it didn't even exist at that time, why is he pointing out that people couldn't watch it? Obviously, if the company didn't exist no one could watch it! That seems totally redundant. I haven't learned a thing from this presentation. Ugh SMH
I was living over in Indiana, so I and my family just missed being a part of the "fun". Definitely heard about it though.
@@jessicatriplev9802 yeah.... Welcome to half as interesting. I think you will learn to love this place....eventually 🤣
Half as Interesting & RealLifeLore
videos showing up on a Monday,
feels good.
And both of the same type of things
I was working in a restaurant as a cook in Hamilton, Ontario when this happened. The whole kitchen went dark. We sat around doing nothing until the manager got a battery-operated radio to find out what's going on. When he heard that the power was out in New York too, he sent us all home.
I was in Mississauga.
When we heard that the entire east coast was out, we thought it was the opening act of a serious attack.
9/11/2001 was still fresh in everyone’s minds.
I worked 10 years as a turbine commissioning engineer all over the world. I would love more exposure to the hidden world of power generation and power plants. By the way, the equipment you show when talking about diesel generators is a unit transformer. Sam, if you’d like more info on power generation and some spicy stories, let me know :) Have a great day!
Spicy stories? Hey, I work in a railyard; I'd love some juicy diesel gossip!
In Manhattan after the blackout, there were mountains of spoiled food from restaurant refrigerators lining the streets. So many rats and the smell was gag inducing. However, I did get an "I survived the blackout" t-shirt for my troubles :}
Ah, yes...so the regular smell of NYC then.
"I survived the blackout and all I got was this lousy T-shirt!"
I was a teenager in Detroit when this happened. It was honestly a lot of fun (for me) and my neighborhood turned into a low key block party. Sharing stuff with neighbors, everyone grilling, kids outside, etc.
sounds awesome :D
I miss living in Detroit, no more block parties, people are so odd in the suburbs.
I remember this mainly because at night, there was no light pollution and could see the Milky Way from my own house in Northeast Ohio. It was a sight I’ll never forgot
that's legendary
"Back in 2003 before any of us were born..." Thanks for making me feel old, Sam. I remember the blackout.
According to wiki, Sam was born 1998....
I remember when this happened. I was 11 years old and living on Long Island, NY.
It wasn't even a big issue for our suburban condo complex. It was actually kinda fun. Many of the neighbors brought out tiki torches to line the streets and front yards, and we kinda just hung out and BBQ'd.
I remember it like it was yesterday.
My shift was just ending when it happened. The commute home across the top of Toronto was odd: no radio stations.
I then crossed from top to bottom, 401 to DVP, through the city, and every traffic light was out. Strangers started calling out to one another, asking for information.
I took photos of the mass exodus of pedestrians from the core on Yonge St.
Once back with family and friends, we discussed if this might have been another 9-11.
We discussed "how long"... how long could the power stay out before the whole system collapsed, and couldn't be recovered.
Scary times.
I remember when this happened! I was in NYC and it was both amazing and terrible. It was amazing because everyone was giving away free food and people could see the stars. It was terrible because I fell and broke my arm and couldn't go to the hospital and had to be entertained with a battery powered TV.
Oh man, this was one of the most pivotal moments of my childhood- the first time I remember ever seeing the stars like that as a kid who grew up in NYC. It was so quiet! I spent a long time on my apartment's roof just looking on in awe. My dad took the subway to work and had to spend the night at his job at Petco :0
i remember being really young when this happened. my dad had a portable tv that ran on the car lighter/charger thing and i remember us being the only ones who could watch the news on our half of the street
I had just started work at the Domino's I worked for, and just as we were putting the second order for the day in the oven (and the first one came out), the power went off. I recall calling the customer and letting them know what happened and if they still wanted their pizza once the power was restored (they didn't), then off to deliver the one order I got that day. Upon returning, that was when we found out this went beyond just a simple little outage. I managed to buy a case of water at the drug store in the same plaza, then went home after managing to get a hold of my mother. I then went over to her house and napped for a while, then got up and returned to my apartment, where I was so bored out of my mind I went out for a drive...when I found out on the radio that a city about 20 miles to the west had power and everything, so off I went to get gas, have a drink or two, and try to buy Taco Bell...only to be the second in line to be too little too late to order, and then I went home to go to bed. Once the power returned by late morning, I called work to ask, and they said, yes their power was back and if I wanted to come in. Hell yeah I did! I worked the entire day that day to make up for the previous day.
I remember when this happened. It was pretty fun as I was a teenager hanging out with my friends in the middle of summer, and we decided that swimming and going out for long walks (and being teenagers - causing trouble) was the best solution. Thankfully we were on a small lake side town with a big rural area around said town and all the beaches we could want. Power came back on the next morning, and back to video games we went.
Growing up in Lake County, Ohio (which Eastlake resides within), I remember this all too well with multiple days without power. And yes, FirstEnergy is still horrible at their main job to this day. P.S. - "before any of us were born??!" Way to make a millennial feel ancient.
Ok boomer /s
Right?! Like I feel like a fossil right now lol
I was in college when it happened. I remember the power went out in the co-op house I was living in at the time, I went and sat in my car with the engine running for a little while to get cool, took a cell phone call from my dad (he lives in another state that wasn't affected by the blackout) who asked if I was out of power, and that was the first I'd realized that it wasn't just limited to my own city. We would lose power at least briefly pretty frequently in the house where I grew up because our little corner of the rural grid was vulnerable to weather disruptions, it never occurred to me to go looking for how widespread an outage was.
I can remember how much more stunning the night sky was with no lights around for hundreds of miles. I really hope to see the night sky like that again some day.
I was a kid in Brooklyn when this blackout happened. What was so amazing to me was being able to see the full starry night sky. Where I live you can see a few stars at most during the night. Seeing the full night sky in Brooklyn was a trip
I remember this. I was young. I remember being mad that my parents got Dunkin one morning and they didn’t get us any donuts lmao (little did I know that they only had enough generator power to run coffee makers and that’s it) . We had to go to a family friend across town to take showers. I also remember people hearing rumors that it was another terrorist attack (grew up right outside NYC). What a crazy time, indeed.
I remember the blackout! We were just passing our 1 year ark immigrated to Toronto Canada (I was 10 years old at the time)! I remember how crazy it was trying to get food, the POS were not working because they needed electricity. We went to the Rabba in Meadowvale to get some bread, and the guy was giving it out for free because he was helping people out who didn't have cash. Our AC was not working and it was 28°c or something high and we wanted to sit in the car for some AC but were running out of gas.
I remember in school we had to write about our experience through the blackout, and my story was awarded something for it.
What a simpler time. Even though we didn't have our TV or computer working, it was still just an amazing experience. No one was sad or stressed. The neighbors came together to help each other out, and we all made the best of it.
sounds awesome :)
I always hear about this blackout because I was born during it. My mom talks about how the hospital was on generated power and everything was crazy.
I was born in '91...
My area was still recovering from the shock of 9/11 and the Spaceshuttle Columbia disaster. People started fearing it was the result of another attack. Our local hospitals didn't have the generator capacity and had to choose between life support and climate control, which is a loose loose when you have people coming in with heat related ailments and inpatients sucking down IV bags like they're Gatorade. My neighborhood was out of power for 3 days because the surge from TMI ramping up fried the "revolutionary" (experimental) underground power lines and crews had bigger problems to contend with.
The early '00's were a bit too exciting.
@@lomaii2847 Ich würde Spätzle bevorzugen.
@@dhawthorne1634 how did they even get a RUclips icon
The image is hosted by google under their "user content" site.I'm not sure how they got it to display as an image. It probably has something to do with the Emoji unicode. 🎆🎇🎆🎆🎇🎇🎆🎇🎇🎇🎆🎆
I was at a store with my mom when this happened, the lights went out and I'm pretty sure she at least briefly thought it was somehow my fault 😂
This was actually closer to Netflix offering streaming (three and a half years) than its founding (six years).
That line was totally bogus. ruclips.net/video/yR2lgxy-htU/видео.html Netflix was simply a different type of company at the time, but the name already existed.
I remember it, I lived in Ontario and I remember the fallout afterwards when a bunch of American politicians blamed Canada for it. Meanwhile Canadian politicians were blaming Canada and the US because they had no clue but still wanted to say sorry like it was their fault part of the time.
Ya the PC government of the time got a lot of the blame, one of the reasons they were voted out..
I remember this vividly. I was in Syracuse Ny talking to a customer in Chicago and we both lost power at the exact same time. We were a bit dumbfounded how so far apart yet both lost power
I was 17, thank you, and lived outside of Ann Arbor Michigan at the time. Thankfully that was the far western edge of the blackout. We drove about 60 minutes west where they had power and had dinner at a restaurant. All was good.
This blackout also affected a small portion of eastern Nova Scotia. I had a gig caused by a power outage and no one seemed to be able to pinpoint its source, but it ran on the same grid as those further west.
I was working at a Boy Scout Summer Camp, so the only thing I noticed was the Kitchen stoped being operational. Thank You Red Cross for sending trucks out with hot food for us and our campers.
Really enjoyed this one. You should look into the Queens NY Blackout of 2006, which although wasn't as big, was the longest blackout in NYC history lasting 8 days.
Also it was the time when we were misled of the true scope of the blackout, not realizing one Con Edison customer could be an entire apartment building.
Nearly the same initial issue for the 2021Texas Electric issue, what seperates the two is that ERCOT immediately told power providers to start "conserving" and shedding load. Once plants came back online, so did the electricity.
Here's a funny story: in Iran, one of the powerplant's technicians hit the manual trip button as a dare (by another technician) and that caused a country wide black out pretty much like what you described. It was such a big problem that the Minister of Energy got involved.
When the stability of the grid hinges on a literal dare....
Just an official letter taped to the button: I don't care if you were triple dog dared don't touch it
Dude that was a genuinely entertaining video and the segway to the ad was so clean I didn’t even notice it until after.
Left band camp and came home to no lights. I remember this, it sucked at first. It was pretty fun by the end of it.
I got stuck on the first hill of a rollercoaster when the power went out. We were about to go over the first hill of the magnum at cedar point when it stopped. Had to walk all the way down. Drove all the way back to Michigan with almost no gas stations open. Got home with no power there either. Great time.
There were more than a few other problems due to lack of maintenance. For example, Ontario Hydro's control station had 2 generators. The first one started, failed. The second one? It was missing parts that were used to fix the first. There were a lot of changes in the next few years, which are probably now slowly drifting back to the old ways...
Seems silly to cannibalize one of your generators when you end up with only 1 working generator anyways.
Here in Mississauga, someone was stabbed on my lawn during the blackout. I was a kid, we lived in an solid neighbourhood, no crime and in the suburbs. But it ended up taking the ambulance too long to get to him and then to the hospital that he died on the way.
I loved in New York at the time. I was at work and we were all getting ready to stay late to get get a big deal done on time. The blackout ruined that. The traffic was at a stand still. Thousands of people trying to walk home. Remarkably everyone was patient with the situation and just did what needed to get done.
Not too far from Eastlake, OH, I was driving home from the library, listening to the radio trying to see if I won tickets to the Michael W Smith concern, when the station went off. I thought it was just the station, then I noticed the traffic lights were off. The community had brown outs all of the time, and I didn't think anything of it till I drove to a neighboring community grocery store and the power was off as well. The grocery store had back up generators, but limited registers. And yes they had discounted ice cream too. At least I had plenty of books to read by the many flashlights and candles I owned. It wasn't till the next day that I realised how widespread it was. And yes I won tickets to the concert :)
Hey I remember this one. I was pretty young so I mostly just thought it was kinda cool. Sat around playing my gameboy, which is what I would have been doing power or no power, and when night came everyone went outside to see the sky since there was suddenly no light pollution.
I lived in Metro Detroit at the time, and our neighborhood had a habit of losing power at the drop of the hat, lots of trees and commonly blown transformers. My dad went out and managed to get one of the last gas generators he could find and once we got it running we managed to find out the true scale of the blackout. That said, for some reason, our neighborhood was without power for 3 days. I was really glad he got that generator, but those 3 days taught me a lot about how to handle an extended outage.
Ummm so I just figured out why I was born lmao
very interesting topic. I live in NY and I remember thus vividly. it was in august and I remember it just being sweltering hot outside. I remember going to bed that night in just my skivvies lying on my back on my bed motionless in order to try to find some sort of relief
Oh, this one is a *fascinating* story. Kinda put the real world consequences of technology into perspective - I hope we've learned at least a few lessons since. Honestly it's also a great setup for a movie plot or something (and I think I've seen it incorporated as backstory before, I think that was in the Watch Dogs games).
I disagree. It's a terrible video.
It has nothing to do with airplanes. Or bricks. 😅
@@TheEDFLegacy lol
I live in Southwestern Ontario. I was university at the time and had just finished my last exam for the term when I got home. Shortly afterwards the power went out. This was late afternoon.
I had use the radio in my car to get an update and found out just how large the power failure actually was.
We were fortunate in that we got power back before midnight but others took days or more.
@@sheldonpetrie3706 I remember that, too. I think Ice Storm '98 was arguably worse, as the infrastructure damage was so extreme. And yes, I lived through that too. O.O
@keep rollin shut
I remember that blackout. I lived in Nova Scotia and was on vacation with my boyfriend to visit his father in British Columbia.
We were due to fly back that day or the day after but our flights got cancelled and I absolutely panicked because I had just graduated highschool and was heading to university in a couple of weeks. Since I didn't know how long we would need to wait for another flight, I thought I wouldn't be able to move into my university dorm on time. In the end, we got another flight in a few days, so I was still able to pack and move into my dorm.
Just like to point out that at 1:27 you showed the city of Cincinnati Ohio(home of the 2022 AFC Champion Cincinnati Bengals) but this occurred on the entire other side of the state in Eastlake Ohio which is only famous for causing a giant blackout in 2003 that you should do a video about sometime.
if im right cincinnati wasnt even hit by the blackout lol
Whenever something goes wrong always blame Cleveland
@@UserName-ts3sp Nope, the lights flickered for a second, but they cut the grid connections off just in time.
I remember this one. I was living in Sarnia, ON at the time, AKA Chemical Valley. I had a volunteer meeting held in a park along the St. Clair and I'll never forget looking over to the plants to see an especially dark cloud of something spewing from the plants that afternoon.
What was the black stuff?
@@BigBoss-sm9xj Oh, it was just increased flairing to stablize everything. It's normal, but at the time, all the plants had to do it; and with the Chemical Valley being home to at least three major oil refineries (Sarnia-Lambton was the birthplace of the Canadian oil industry, with Imperial Oil being the biggest notable name to have been founded in Sarnia) and various other plastics, fertilizers and other chemicals within about a five kilometer radius, it was excessive during the Blackout.
@@emilyplunkett6034 that sounds like the beginning of a apocalypse movie haha
Correction, the grid in Ohio is not covered by MISO. It is currently covered by PJM Interconnection. Northeast Ohio, in the ATSI zone, didn’t join until after the blackout regardless
I remember this. When the power went out I was in the back room at work It was so dark. Luckily the generator kicked in so it was only for a few seconds, but the store ended up losing tons of money on the refrigerated food that was not on the back of generator...
The worst part was that it was in the middle of a heatwave. No AC in a humid Michigan August, not fun.
I was 8, southern Jersey. I remember taking a walk outside with my family and dog. Plenty of the towns people were doing the same thing. We had no idea what was going on lol. My biggest concern was how am I going to charge my GBA SP?! So I conserved it by playing it with no back light and using a hand cranked flashlight lol. Forgot all about that until this video. Thank you
As a power systems engineer in the Northeast, this video was a surprisingly good regurgitation of the Wikipedia entry on the 2003 Blackout, which is exactly what makes this channel special.
Lol
My dads told me a story about this (I was 5), he and my grandfather were standing on the dock of our shop and could see the nuclear plant near us puffing out yellow smoke, they had a few minutes of panic
Nuclear power plant run out of magick smoke
4:36 Sam: “the fact that you are watching this right now means that you do have power and internet”
Me: *laughs in phone battery and downloaded video*
I still remember that day, and I called in sick and then all the stop lights stopped working in the way home from the doctor's 😂😂😂
Congrats on 2 mill subs bro!
I remember that day amazingly well. I got home from school and was watching The Simpsons at 4pm and it was the episode where Bart and Milhouse run the Android's Dungeon. I then tried my TV about four or five times before giving up. I was 13 at the time, going to be 14 that October. I'll be 33 this October.
I remember this, I was 12, and we used our camping gear to cook up all the perishable food, and the stars were just incredible. Happy childhood memories
I remember this. CNN was interviewing literal random people off the street in New York to ask them if they thought it was terrorism, and treating these literal random people as authorities on the subject.
I remember this happening. I was camping with my troope on the Connecticut River and we didn't find out that everyone lost power in the region til we got back when the power was back on.
I remember when this happened - is was after 9/11 too. Some people who had walked out of the city after the attack had to walk out over the bridges again... lots of fun.
3:29, not to mention that it was the start of evening commutes in large cities, so traffic signals were down which caused backups. I lived on a busy one-way street when this happened, and I remember the street being a parking lot for over an hour.
Imagine the amount of stars you could see because of no light pollution
I remember this! I was eleven and we neighborhood kids were already been outside playing baseball. Our parents, and the other adults on our street, just came outside and hung out while we kept playing. Everyone knew something funky had happened, but it was a nice summer day, so no one really cared.
We can all agree that he never disappoints us with his content
Shut up bot
So why, with all the disasters that happened as a consequence of the power outage is he focusing on the Netflix?? If it didn't even exist at that time, why is he pointing out that people couldn't watch it? Obviously, if the company didn't exist no one could watch it! That seems totally redundant. I haven't learned a thing from this presentation. Ugh SMH
@@jessicatriplev9802 it was a fun little joke
@@jessicatriplev9802 Im annoyed about him not digging deeper intothe software bug... as the title promised
I was living in Cincinnati at the time, and the lights only flickered there for a few moments. The local grid was cut off just in time from the grid in the more northern areas of Ohio, so we managed to keep our lights on.
My family was on road trip vacation in Ontario (from the US) at the time. And since info still wasn't that available back in 03 we just assumed we got unlikely that town. Until the next one town was out too, then the next.
0:29
To someone who didn’t know that, the entire grid being connected except Texas sounds exactly like a joke HAI would make.
I'm from Cleveland, but I didn't know all this was happening because I was living in Virginia at the time. I saw this on the news while I sat in the waiting room of the ER while my girlfriend was being treated and I distinctly remember the vending machine not taking my dollar and I was hungry as fuck for 4 hours while I waited. Funny the weird shit you remember.
I lived in Hartford, CT during the blackout. The power stayed on here.
RealLifeLore and HAF doing lights on the same day! Now I'm just waiting on that super lazy Wendover guy to tell me about the logistics about light distribution!
I remember when this happened. I was 18 and warching the Powerpuff Girls when the power went off. The McDonald's my sister and i worked at had powered windows for the drive thru and when the power went off the window was stuck half way. My sister who was a manager had a wonderful task of sitting overnight at the McDonald's to make sure no one broke in.
Technically Netflix existed, just not the online streaming service but the DVD rental had been going strong for years
So netflix wouldnt go down if you had a generator for tv and dvd
@@vipvip-tf9rw yes
I was living in upstate NY at the time and we had several plants in the area. The nuclear ones tripped off and wouldn't be back on line for a couple days. The NG plant was 'black start' capable and came back within an hour and it fed some old fuel-oil plants. Man, I still remember those long-idle stacks suddenly belching out some black smoke as they fired up those oil-fired boilers that had been idle for a long time. But they were glad to have them available and we got power back that night.
1:20 - okay no this is a bit misleading and dangerous. American circuit breakers are not there to prevent harm, they are simply there to protect the wires in your house from overheating. and jamming a fork into an outlet will probably not even trip a circuit breaker at all. it'll just shock you to death with no obstruction. it probably won't pull enough power to trip, but that power is still enough to kill. or it takes another path and isn't detected at all. you could be taking 1700w at 120v straight through the heart and your circuit breaker would literally be fine with it. I know this is probably trivial and dumb but I would hate anybody to walk away from that actually thinking that sticking metal in an outlet would just trip a breaker.
And because of that moment in my childhood when the power went out for hours during summer break, I now keep lots of charged batteries for lights, fans, and electronics.
HAI never disappoints
The "2003, before any of us were born" line, hurts. Because I know a lot of your viewers were not born yet, but I remember that blackout. I live in CT and we had no power.
Fun fact I was born during this incident in New York and my parents would always say I was what caused the power outage.
I remember this. Our power was out for 2 days. It was super hot outside and we didn't have AC. Our house had a water pump so after about a day, we ran out of water. It was inconvenient but wasn't too bad. I was a kid then and have experienced similar issues as an adult.
It's always Ohio. Friggin' Ohio. No wonder so many astronauts come from there, they just want to get out of Ohio.
Real life lore and Half as interesting having similar videos at the sametime, sometimes I can’t even differentiate the two channels.
Interistingly, in 2003 we also had a nation wide blackout here in Italy, and for broadly the same reason. It was due to ground faults in two particularly critical grid connectors (between Italy and Switzerland) that were being overloaded. Once they opened they initiated a cascade failure propagating to all the other interconnectors between the Italian grid and the rest of the ten UCTE, leaving us cut off from the rest of Europe and a massive 6.6GW short out of a 27GW load.
The official report has the precise timeline of events - once the failure started, it took exactly 2 minutes and 30 seconds for the entire grid to collapse. In our case the operators _knew_ what was happening, but they had no way to stop it in time.
I was actually in Gettysburg PA on vacation with my family when this happened. We missed getting the blackout there, but at home in NJ everyone got it.
The book Lights Out by Ted Koppel highlights many of the risks presented to the power grid in the United States. Fascinating read if you want to know more about the copious issues found in the US power grid system.
I was in NYC that day. It was interesting trying to get out of the city with no traffic lights. (We’d driven in.) Random people started directing traffic with no coordination.
I had to take a double take when I saw this video in my sub box, as the thumbnail is very similar to RealLifeLore's latest video, and I thought they just did a reupload without deleting the older video lol
Thanks for make me feeling really old…”2003 before we all where born” I’m from 1966 so I guess I must be as old as the dinosaurs 😂
It's crazy that subway cars don't have the minimal battery they would need to get to the next station. But hey, the MTA can't even get their trains to stop in the right spot so they can put in gates to prevent people from getting pushed in front of trains every few weeks.
Only recently Shinkansen N700s got batteries powerful enough to travel to nearest station during a power outage. It will take time for that technically to trickle down to regular subways.
Yes, I remember this.
That day a friend and I had planned a trip into NY City to go see movie at the IMAX. That afternoon the power went out at work. This happened occasionally at work as we periodically blew the line fuses. So we decided to head off early for out movie. It first we did not notice much since we were on the freeway but as we kept driving we noticed something seemed wrong. Eventually we turned around and headed home. Our kids really liked it because they got off school early and several stores were giving away free ice cream.
As an Engineer I read the story of what happened and the whole thing was so preventable (and when you look at it, it was doomed to happen sometime). Designing a system that requires everyone to not make mistakes is doomed to learn the consequence of that choice.
How did you know there was a widespread power cut when on the freeway in the daytime? What seemed wrong?
@@bristoled93 I don't remember exactly. What I remember we started noticing something was wrong after about 20min of driving. Normally you can see traffic lights and stuff from the freeway so that might have been it but likely we heard something on the radio. We were almost to Whit Plains before we finally turned around.
@@connecticutaggie oh right I see.