Nov. 10, 1965
Power Failure Plunges New York, Vast Eastern Areas Into Darkness
Blackout Hits At Height Of Rush Hour
NEW YORK (AP) ─ The mammoth complex of New York City ─ most populous metropolitan area in the world ─ along with vast areas of the Northeast plunged into frightening darkness Tuesday from the worst power shutdown in history.
Consolidated Edison said at about 9:40 p.m. that it seemed apparent that most of the city would be without power most of the night.
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Power was reported restored within a couple or three hours in much of Massachusetts, Connecticut, parts of New York state, and some other areas.
The blackout, which extended into the big cities of Canada, was estimated to have hit cities, towns and countryside in which at least 30 million people live.
Almost a million commuters were stranded in subways and elevators and on electric trains in New York. Airliners were diverted from New York's blacked-out airports to Newark and Philadelphia ports.
The cause was reported to be a disruption at a substation near Clay, N.Y., in a vital point in a vast grid system carrying electricity to far-flung areas.
President Johnson commissioned Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and other officials to extend all needed federal aid to the affected communities in New York State, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
Electric clocks in the vast metropolis of New York stopped at 5:28 p.m. and in Boston at 5:21. Traffic signals also went dead, producing monumental jams at the height of the rush hour.
Thousands of New Yorkers, blocked from returning home to their dinner tables, descended on snack shops.
Every hotel in the city was filled. Some refused to take additional guests because there was no way to get them to top floor rooms, although there were reports that some stranded commuters had walked up as many as 30 floors for a bed.
The Statue of Liberty maintained its illumination throughout. The statue appeared to be the only beacon of light in the harbor.
The city's office buildings became a major source of trouble as people were trapped in stuck elevators. Workmen cut out a section of wall on the fifth floor of the Pan Am building to extricate five persons from elevators in which they had been stranded for more than five hours.
As midnight approached officials at the building made plans to dig into two other walls to rescue nine other persons still trapped.
Luckily, a full harvest moon bathed Manhattan's streets.
Harlem had a holiday air. Teenagers by the hundreds kept warm around fires set in trash baskets while their elders watched from front stoops and doorways.
The power blackout affected Associated Press headquarters in New York, and the AP's Washington bureau took over to round up news of the power blackout and to supervise distribution of other news.
The radio and television networks also switched operations for a time to the nation's capital or to other network points.
Many stores, including those selling suddenly needed flashlights, put up shutters and closed down, to escape possible looting. Hundreds of off-duty policemen were summoned.
In New York City, thousands of persons made their way to the Grand Central terminal only to learn that no trains were moving to suburban areas. Snack bars began doing a brisk business.
New York police ordered all taverns to stop selling intoxicating beverages.
At Bellevue Hospital on the lower East Side of Manhattan 500 student nurses and 500 medical students were summoned to duty. The fire and police department supplied auxiliary lighting for emergency use.
The blackout began first with a dimming. Then the lights flickered on again and off again several times. But within minutes, virtually the whole city on the ground, below and above the ground, was dark.
With startling suddenness, normal activity stopped.
