Cut
When it happened in New York just three weeks ago they warned the same could happen here. And it did. Today.
270 sets of traffic lights blink out. 250,000 people stranded. 1,000 trains stopped in/on their tracks. 400 calls to the fire brigade to free people trapped in lifts.
Kathryn called at half six. I was still in the office with Mark and she was on the verge of missing her train as the national grid collapsed, most of London was starved of electricity and the tube network shut down.
I could really have done without it. But then couldn’t we all. It had started to rain mid-afternoon, just around four as we headed out on the daily tea run. As the afternoon wore on and the heating, for some inexplicable reason, switched itself on, it got harder and harder so that by the time I left it was strong and constant and the streets were clogged by brolleys.
I fought my way through them, my hood pulled up and the rain soaking through my coat and jeans, eventually finding some open gates three stops down the line: Chancery Lane. I went down to the platform, expecting it to be ten bodies deep, but it was nigh-on desetred, the trains have only just started to run.
I was on one within a minute, rattling through closed stations with other drenched walkers. The warm carriage and our wet clothes conspired to make the air hot and humid.
It was like we were rumbling along below the crowded streets in a red and white travelling sauna.
If you liked that post, then try these...
Financial irregularities on December 14th, 2002
One day to go on October 7th, 2003
Chris’s party on June 11th, 2005
Cafe society on October 24th, 2003
August 29th, 2003 at 10:17 am
This is a story about how blogging affects my daily life: When I heard about the electricity cut in London, I immediately thought ‘I wonder what Nik has to say about this.’
Did I think about my family, who lives in the city? No.