The Northeast-Midwest blackout on Aug. 14, 2003, left over 28 million people in Michigan, New York, Ohio and other states without electricity for up to four days.

Where were you and what were you doing when the lights went out? (Obviously, some of you weren’t affected.)

I was at work, managing the cashiers at the grocery store where I worked. After we finally herded the customers out of the store (who were very upset that we couldn’t grind meat or slice cheese for them any more), I counted down their tills and the safe by penlight. The store manager handed out gallons of water to employees and regular customers for free, out of kindness. later on, we had a BBQ behind the store with our Demo grill, written-off charcoal, and all the meat in the cooler that didn’t fit in the ice truck and the leftover deli salads, so the employees who stuck it out could have dinner. Another employee pulled up his car and put the radio up, so it was like a party.

What did you do? Were you stuck at work? How did you get through it?

Topics: cooking, New York, New England, camping, electricity, stories, community, Ohio, Michigan, Ontario, survival, panic, blackout, darkness, 2003, candlelight, amazing starry sky