Where were you during the blackout of 2003?

[sumas]

kind of forgot about that, stores giving stuff away. Really really missed my ice though.

[msamslex]

I was at home on the computer, I forgot what daughter was doing but she was home with me. Got some kind of power surge? then it tried to stay on, and went out. I unplugged the computer and went outside. Next door neighbor ran out too wondering if our power went out. It was eerily quiet. Next thought was saving the food in the frig. Neighbor says we'd better hop in the car and go up to Pars on Greenfield for dry ice.

Neighbor made her way up Joy Rd. to Greenfield safely and Pars already had a line, folk leaving with their ice warned us Pars was charging $25.00 for a small block!! I don't know how much a small block would normally cost but judging by folk's attitude as they left with ice, price gouging was taking place. We pooled our money to buy one block since neither of us having enough to each buy a block at those prices.

Got our ice and made our way home. We split the block three ways so my senior neighbors on the other side of me could have some for their frig. We all took stock of our cold and frozen stuff. Senior neighbor always ordered stuff through the mail. UPS was always at their house. They had a few boxes of food from Omaha steaks. We fired up the grill and cooked whatever was in the boxes, steaks, burgers, etc. Stuff we had in our own freezers. Used up whatever cold stuff we all had for sides. We all pitched in and cooked while the seniors relaxed at the picnic table in the backyard. Had a nice spread and great conversation. It was nice to just visit and talk a bout whatever. We had been neighbors for over 30 years.

One thing I remembered when the power went out was that a couple days before there was some type of power surge like it was going out but didn't. Then the blackout hit a few days later.

[MrNittany]

Oh wow, I remember this. 10 years already, that doesn't seem possible. I was actually working part-time Fridays through Sundays during summer [[apart from my regular job) for a packaged ice company: Party Time Ice up in Shelby Township [[they've been bought out by a much larger out-of-town company in the 10 years since).

That Friday was pretty crazy though. Saw a lot of animal-like behavior in people: people waiting in line at our distribution center [[we were NOT price gouging) fighting with each other, talking openly about just stealing from us instead of waiting in a 60-120 minute line. Some drivers literally trying to run our trucks off the road.

After that, it was a long 1-2 week process getting all our customers back stocked up and normal. [[there was of course the boil water advisory which was in effect all the way through that Monday)

That experience did make me realize one thing: it wouldn't take society long at all to truly break down if something real bad happened.