By Shams Tarek

For some, it was like the 1980s apocalypse movie “Escape From New York,” in which a powerless, city is devoid of people after a mass exodus.

For others, it was like Sept. 11 all over again.

But for most people in and about Southeast Queens, the most widespread blackout in the country’s history was mainly just a major pain in the posterior.

Nowhere in the borough was the crunch felt more acutely than in downtown Jamaica, transfer point for dozens of bus, subway and rail lines and considered the busiest mass transit hub in the northeast United States.

Thousands of stranded LIRR and subway passengers lingered around the Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue hub, all waiting to catch a bus home.

The most desperate commuters started arriving at the station around 8:30 p.m., four hours after the lights went out.

With all East River bridges closed to vehicular traffic, the only way into Downtown Jamaica was by foot and then by bus or car.

Twenty-year-old Keron Stewart, of Queens Village, was in a Midtown Manhattan store when the power went out. With no way to reach his parents and not enough money to take a cab from western Queens, Stewart walked all the way to the Sutphin-Archer hub – over six hours – fainting five times along the way.

As he arrived at the station around 10:45 p.m. and refused medical attention offered by two police officers, an exhausted Stewart recalled a journey that he called “a total nightmare.”

“This commute was total chaos,” Stewart said.  “Much worse than Sept. 11.”

Devon Newell, a Suffolk County resident and former Cantor Fitzgerald employee who lost 19 friends on Sept. 11, also said this week’s blackout was worse than the attacks of two years ago... commuting-wise.

“It’s a terrible day,” said Newell around 10:30 p.m while waiting for a bus that might eventually get him home.  “No one knows what’s going on.”

Christine Jewtuch-Mazzei, who grew up in South Ozone Park but recently moved to Amityville, acted as a guide for a group of her Manhattan colleagues, who joined her first in a walk from Grand Central Station to Woodhaven Boulevard and then in a bus ride to Sutphin-Archer.

As of presstime, power had been restored to much of the borough, though downtown Jamaica and much of Southeast Queens was still out.  Rail and subway service was scheduled to start sometime after the Friday evening commute time.

The Day After:
SEQ Battles Back  

By Shams Tarek

While the lights flickered back on across most of Queens the day after this week’s massive blackout, many parts of Eastern and Southeast Queens still sat in the dark, leaving one area hospital at risk of shutting down.

The night the lights went out in Southeast Queens, cops were directing traffic on Hillside Avenue while hospitals evaluated their power supplies. PRESS Photo by Shams Tarek

Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica – an institution with Southeast Queens’ only high-level trauma center – was at risk of running out of temporary power and transferring all of its patients to another hospital because of the power outage, a spokeswoman said on Aug. 15.

Like all hospitals throughout the City, Mary Immaculate went on emergency backup power as soon as the blackout started at around 4 p.m. on Aug. 14, but unlike other hospitals, was still running on generators late the next day. Worried officials said the fuel supply powering the generators could run out.

If that happens, patients would be moved to St. John’s Hospital, a sister facility in Elmhurst, said Mary Immaculate spokeswoman Debbie Cohen.

Cohen said the hospital is on “constant evaluation” right now, that officials will know ahead of time if generators are about to fail and that “everyone imaginable is on standby right now.”

Backup power at Mary Immaculate went out for a full seven minutes the night of the blackout. Cohen said while doctors and staff scrambled to keep critical patients safe, no one suffered any injuries or complications from the blackout.

Jamaica Hospital, just a few blocks west, was also still on generators at presstime. Spokesperson Tara Fleming said it did face the threat of losing backup power, but an emergency was averted when the Long Island Railroad donated and delivered fuel for the hospital’s generators.

As area hospitals struggled to keep their power on during this week’s blackout, everyone else in Southeast Queens without generators just waited.

All of Community Boards 12 and 13, covering the borough south of Hillside Avenue and east of the Van Wyck Expressway, were still without power at presstime.

Thelma Brown, a senior who lives on 177th Street off Farmers Boulevard, was infuriated by the delay in restoring electricity.

“This is a very old neighborhood,” Brown said.  “Some of these people have been paying taxes for many years. Nobody is talking about Southeast Queens and I am quite disturbed.”

Community Board 13 Chairman Richard Hellenbrecht agreed, and said, “I’ll have to look into this. If most of Queens has power and we don’t, that’s a big problem.”

Blackout Inspires Charity, Kindness...
And Scams

By Shams Tarek

About an hour after the Aug. 14 blackout that put the entire northeast United States in the dark, Jamaica resident Laura Colon stood on the corner of Jamaica Avenue and Parsons Boulevard in tears.

She had just picked up her 19-month-old stroller-bound daughter Shajada and her four-year-old handicapped son Marcus, from a day care center in downtown Jamaica.  Her kids were hungry and thirsty, and she wanted to get them home as soon as possible.

But people all over the neighborhood were trying to scam her, Colon said, and she was left stranded...without water, food or a way home.

Colon tried to buy a bottle of water from a street vendor, who offered it for the blackout-special price of $3. Ditto for another street vendor selling sandwiches – they were $8 for a small sub.

Several gypsie cab drivers and regular private citizens picking up stranded commuters offered to take Colon on her 15-block ride down Jamaica Avenue – for between $15 and $25.

With people packed inside buses shoulder to shoulder, there was no way Colon could take one with her kids and all their gear. And the heat and her desperation kept her from looking for an honest vendor.

“This is horrible,” Colon said. “I can’t do anything. I’m powerless.”

The ones Colon encountered were just some of the scams going on throughout Southeast Queens after the lights went out on Thursday.

Other shady dealings included the threat of misbehaving – on one Jamaica side street, a group of teenage boys in do-rags stood in a close circle as one said, “You know what you’re trying to do right now? You’re trying to be gangsta.”

Near a pitch-black Rufus King Park, where dozens of local residents sat around on benches with only the moonlight, their cigarettes and an ice cream truck bringing them light, a group of teenagers told a newspaper photographer that he has a nice camera and that he should “put it away; you’re fresh meat around here.”

“Tonight’s a night of looting,” another one of the kids said.

Though police officials wouldn’t comment on crime in Southeast Queens during the blackout, several officers on the street said there was little to no looting, and hardly any other problems.

It was in stark contrast to the last major blackout in New York City in 1977, when fires raged throughout the city and stores were looted of their merchandise.

And in stark contrast to the flood of questionable activity this week, there were also plenty of charitable acts from both private citizens and government agencies that showed the helpful side of the people of Southeast Queens.

Many drivers offered rides to stranded commuters and didn’t charge anything.  Some people on their stoops offered pitchers of free water, and many store owners brought their most popular wares out onto the street and didn’t inflate their prices.

At the busy Sutphin-Archer transportation hub in downtown Jamaica, commuters more experienced with the neighborhood and its buses – trains and subway cars weren’t running – gave directions and guidance to the uninitiated.

At almost every major intersection without police officers, regular citizens volunteered to direct traffic. Many took their jobs quite seriously, like Alex Mermelstein on 164th Street near the Queens Hospital Center, who donned a reflective vest and carried an orange flag and whistle.

Across the street from Rufus King Park, one local resident opened up a fire hydrant for kids to play in, and said, “It’s hot out here, man. I know I’m not supposed to do that, but these kids are dying out here.”

Samantha Endo, a nine-year-old Jamaica resident, was grateful for the charity, and said, “This is great. I can’t take the heat. I really can’t.” Her six-year-old brother Mark laughed as he ran through the makeshift sprinkler, and said, “This feels good.”

But one neighbor put the move into the scam category, saying, “This is ridiculous. It’s against the law to open that thing up. And now it’s all over. They’ll survive without heat.”

The man who opened it responded, “C’mon, this is an extraordinary situation. You have to do what you have to do to get through it.” He added with a smirk, “Even if it’s not legal.”

– Angela Montefinise contributed to this story

Blackout Reminder Of Another Dark Day

By Aaron Rutkoff

As Astoria resident Greg Weaver walked across the Queensborough Bridge this week during the East Coast’s massive blackout, he couldn’t help but remember the last time he went home from work that way.

“I did this same walk almost two years ago now,” Weaver said, remembering the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 when thousands of Queens residents were forced to head home across the bridge.

With subways not running and the bridge packed with people this week, many were reminded of the horror of that morning, but this atmosphere was different. 

John Peccaree of Bayside called the situation, “a cheerful version of Sept. 11,” and said of his walk across the Queensborough Bridge, “It brought back some pretty terrible memories. I remember last time I made that walk...I didn’t know where my wife was or if the bridge would collapse under me. This time, I got an ice cream, I relaxed. I wasn’t scared.”

Carol, an Elmhurst resident, admitted that she was a little scared as thoughts of terrorism surged to her mind in the first few minutes after the power outage, but said, “Pretty soon everyone realized that it was okay, and nobody where I was panicked or anything.”

In fact, the only people showing signs of distress during the blackout exodus over the Bridge were the few drivers who were able to make their way over the river and the police officers urgently working to keep lanes open for traffic.

Samit Ahmed, a taxi driver from Bellerose, was one who made the drive over, and said, “It was impossible. People all over the place. But that’s okay, because it was a good day for me...Lots of business.”

He added, “There was a lot of business on Sept. 11, too. But that was a terrible day. This was different. Everyone was in a good mood because they were off from work.”

On Bell Boulevard in Bayside, the mood was light as those who made it home ate pizza on the sidewalk and chatted about the blackout.

At corners across Queens, residents became civil servants as they directed traffic.

City Councilman Eric Gioia said he was proud of the way New Yorkers responded to the blackout, and actually attributed the atmosphere to Sept. 11.

“Since that day I think we’ve all sort of become better people. That was clear during this outage. Everyone was helping each other,” he said.

Bayside resident Ann Polito agreed as she stood on Bell with a pizza from Il Vesuvio in one hand and her four-year-old son Todd’s hand in the other.

She said, “Everyone is smiling at each other, no one’s afraid. I think after Sept. 11 everyone realized that we need to pull together to get through things.”

She added, “After that, this is nothing.”

– Angela Montefinise contributed to this story