TORONTO in the Dark - Meet n'Greet W/O Aug 20 '03    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Books Mildred D. Taylor - Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry: A Literature Unit From $8 Olivier Dunrea - Ollie From $7 The Bottom Line Where were you when the lights went down? After coming across Poprocks "Where were you when the lights when out review" I thought it fun to share with you my little story. It is amazing, because truly no one outside of the blackout can actually get a feel for what it is like to be stranded in another country and feel helpless. I had a 5:00pm flight from Toronto to Chicago on United Airlines. I arrived at 3:30pm at the airport in Toronto, nice and early, or so I thought. The computers were down in US Immigration and the line could have easily been about five hundred. I checked in and waited in line. The next thing the lights go out. Toronto Airport had lost their power, Air Canada started to cancel all their flights. People now started leaving the line, not knowing what to do. While waiting in line, I called the office, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and parts of Canada didn't have power. As I told that to the guy next to me, it spread quickly. Moments later, a man with a bullhorn came and said to us, "Evacuate the airport, much of the northwest has lost power, the airport is closed." Ever have three terminals empty out into the streets? It was at least 90 degrees out and people were freaking out. Most had no money and no where to go. I ran to the Sheraton right across the Terminal and checked myself in just in time. The hotel ended up shutting its doors and asking people not to leave the hotel. The hotel had backup generators, but no lights in the rooms. Had I wanted to rent a car, the borders were closed too. It was as if I was stuck there. It was the strangest thing though. To sleep in a hotel with no lights and to look into the city and see not a flicker for the exception of the red lights on the buildings. There were no airplane movement sounds, nothing. Cars had run out of gas on the roads because the pumps wouldn't work...it was so eerie and surreal. In addition, people's cell phones started to run out of battery so the hoarded to the pay phones. Those payphones probably got more use that night that in the past three years. The one thing though is that strangers would talk to each other. Everyone had a story - and it's funny because the pilot said the same thing the next day on the 7 am flight. Everyone was talking about where they were going to and where they spent the night. Only after we boarded the plane, Toronto Airport had cancelled all flights until noon, off the plane we went. It was a mad house. All those flights that were boarded and then cancelled (PACKED FLIGHTS) dumped their luggage into one domestic carousel. Arriving into Chicago, it was like coming into another world. No one had a "story" no one knew the hell most of the Northeast went through...business and life as usual. Thanks for listening!

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