so i got onto an express train (either the 4 or the 5…dunno, they’re basically the same in manhattan anyway) at 86th street to make my way to port authority to get a bus home for my play’s opening night. i’m about halfway between 86th and the next stop 59th when the train stops. subways stop all the time, for traffic and whatnot, so i wasn’t too concerned when it was slowing down. but when it was stopped and the lights went out in the car before ours and then in ours and the others, the engine shut off, and the air conditioning stopped working, there were mutual groans all over the car. the lighting in the train was great because the emergency lights were working quite nicely. someone walked through all the cars, making sure no one was hurt, and advising us to open the doors and windows if it got too hot, and over the p.a. system the conductor started telling us that we had lost power and were trying to get going as fast as possible. more groaning. the train was fairly full, but not that bad for the green line in manhattan (it gets like packs of sardines at bad hours)–all the seats were taken but i was one of only a few standing. once it became clear it was going to be a while, i sat down on the floor, got out the script for my play(it was supposed to be opening night last night but it was cancelled because of the outage), and started reading it.
eventually we heard through the p.a. system that it was not just us, but a full system failure, so all the trains were down. i started wondering if this would be on the nightly news, and if i was going to make it back in time for the show. there were actually two men up front, a conductor and an operator, or something like that, i’m not sure. so one of them would announce a new development while the other was doing something else, and they’d keep us updated on all progress. actually, one of their announcements was ‘get to know the person next to you. you never know, you could meet the love of your life on this train.’ I thought it was funny. Nobody else seemed to though…it got reeeaally hot inside the train as time went on, because there wasnt much ventiliation, being in a tunnel on a train. people got antsy and annoyed.of course. it happens. one woman had a little kid, probably about a year old, and she was getting really worried because he had a heart condition and had already had an open heart surgery. she was afraid the heat would be too much for him. so all these people were fanning him. one of the guys out front found a way out but it involved very steep climbing and as we were a fairly large group with no flashlights 3 to 3 1/2 stories underground, it was deemed too dangerous to attempt our evacuation using that route.
but whoever it was that went up notified a cop that we were stuck before returning. a little bit after that, cops came through the train and went towards the back. after a while, i guess when they checked out that everything was safe and we could get out, they told us that we’d be walking up the tracks back to the 86th street station. ok. but they had to evacuate the train one car at a time, so being in the middle, we had time. they got off all the children and elderly and sick/injured first, though. i thought that was nice. so all these people were trying to make it to the back cars first, but i didnt really care so long as i got out eventually, so i stayed sitting for a while. meanwhile, the car behind us was having much more fun. someone kept singing ‘its getting hot in here’ over and over (just that lilne, not the whole song) and this guy had a video camera he was usinig to record the whole event. he was actually a pretty cool guy. we got along. he was on his way to spain, and was headed towards an airport, so he had a huge bag he was toting. people helped him though, because he was recording our plight for posterity. so he was taping everything, and it was fun. eventually it got time for our car to go out, and we had to go single file. i thanked every person i saw helping us all out becasue well, they were standing around in the hot sweaty-ness so we could get out of it. and i thought that was cool. so we hung out for a little while and then we got to leave the cars and walk on this ledge between the train and the wall.
oh and on the way out of the train, i overheard cops telling each other that the city was in a state of emergency and it was the whole east coast that was out of power, not just the subways. whoa. I was floored. once we got past the train, we jumped down to the ground, and i got dirty. there was absolutely no cell service the entire time, as one would expect 3 stories underground. it happens. so we all walked along the train tracks, which were metal, wood planks, and rocks/dirt. they told all the women in heels to take them off and go barefoot. i was in birks. needless to say, my feet got quite dirty. there wasnt exactly an overabundance of flashlights and no emergency lighting in the tunnel, so it was quite dark. we basically had to walk straight forward and hope for the best. every so often there’d be a new rail or a dip or a metal thing on the ground and either someone would trip on whatever obstruction it was and warn everyone within earshot behind them of the impending danger. if a cop found out, their flashlight would be shining on it, hopefully. i tripped on some stuff, but i have good balance. no biggie. i made friends with enzo from brooklyn, who was walking by me. he held out his cell to shine some light around, but it didnt do much. he was late twenties, early to mid thirties, and worked one day a week in the city. he was miffed that he’d gotten stuck on the one day a week he comes in, and was worried how he was getting home since he didnt know manhattan that well. we all eventually made it outside, a little dirty, a little sweaty, a little tired, and a little photosensitive from the dark dark tunnel we’d gotten so used to. we’d made it! and it had only been about two hours.
so we climbed the stairs, got out, and made it to the outside world. once i got there, i didnt really know what to do next. i figured at worst i’d have to walk to port authority. not desirable, but not impossible either. so i was back where i started, 86th street, and the crowds were quite large on the sidwalks. there was a woman with a press badge so i went over to her to ask her what she knew, since she, being a reporter, would probably know what was going down. i asked her how bad it was (from toronto to detroit and here and everywhere in-between), and if it was terrorism (probably not). so then these girls were describing the setup of the treck down the tracks,but not very successfully, since the reporter was confused. i helped, and then she started asking me stuff. general things, like what it smelled, sounded, looked like underground, and how similar/different it was from september 11th in the city. she took my name, age, etc. and she said she was from the washington post and was calling her story in from a pay phone, since cells weren’t working. i tried mine, and surely enough, no luck.
so i decided to start walking towards my old high school (id visited earlier in the day) to see if i could get in and wash my hands and use the phone (if pay phones were working, regular ones should’ve been too, i figured). i ran into a kid from school on the way over, who had walked 70 blocks from the village. not fun. but he was in good spirits, as was i. i figured if there was no one left at the school i’d try my aunt’s apartment, then a couple of classmates’, then one of the teachers’, since i knew where they lived. but as i made my way, i walked past a man on his cell phone, talking to somoene. i stopped in my path and asked him how he’d gotten his phone to work, and he said that he was on sprint and it had just started working and he was talking to someone in florida, but it had just been a fluke. so i tried my phone again (verizon), and it worked. yay! i got in touch with my family, because i knew my mother would be worried. and they’d found out i was on the train when the power went out because my friends had figured out that that was where i was, (they’d gone back to school right before the outage) they’d told a teacher who had called my house and told them. so my guidance counselor was soon on his way to let me into the building to wash my hands and whatnot, and he brought ice cream with him. and we hung around for a while whilst my father tried to get into the city, but then it was announced that the city had been cut off from all inbound non-emergency traffic. so pretty soon my aunt was there, and then there were a few other teachers hanging around who’d been in the hood, and we all hung out on the steps of the school eating halfway-melted haagen daazs. mmm. so i was telling them all about my exploits underground and they told me what had gone on according to their wind-up radio. it was fun. and then they reopened the city, my dad came in, and i got home, a mere 5 hours after the power had gone out. not so bad. and by the time i got home, our lights were back on. hooray. i showered like ive never showered before, and we went and got some food. mmm. all in all, a very interesting day.
From now on, I take a bottle of water and a flashlight with me wherever I go.
