Speaking as one who was in the middle of it ... the size of the mess is hard to describe and I presume that you have seen it all on TV.
I was on the coach from Manhattan to JFK on Thursday afternoon when the power failed, so only learnt about it after we arrived. As always with these things, everyone thinks that it is just their own local problem. It takes a lot longer to find out the extent of the problem.
I was at T7 for BA and the four Thursday evening flights did not go. Many folks had the classic experience of their bags already being checked and then having to sleep rough. Naturally the hotels filled very fast. I landed up at the Ramada and got a room but folks were soon on blankets on the floor of the function rooms.
The Thursday flights went at some stage of Friday morning but the Friday morning 178 was cxld which was a pity as that was the one I had a ticket for ...
As you know, when this sort of thing happens, once flights resume, those who have been cxld simply go to the back of the queue and, on this occasion, I had a rock bottom "No changes permitted without you give us tons more money" ticket. So I am now back at my friends place in New Jersey and on the EWR service on Monday 08:00.
Truthfully - I was very lucky. Some folks are in hospital and some died. All that I have lost is three days and several hundred pounds that my travel insurance will haggle over!
The most common thing you heard people say was, "This is unbelievable". Well, as soon as I heard the radio description - I believed it - because similar things have happend before. One TV news jock said, "It is amazing that our elctrical supply is so 'fraj-el'." Well, that was simply because he was too young to remember the last two times!!
To finish on a cheery note ... in the Ramada shuttle bus returning to the terminal on one occasion, the radio was tuned to the news and had some vox pops. One of them was jabbering about how well the Noo Yorkans had responded and he finished by saying, "Thank God we are Americans."
Since the Americans were responsible for their own worst power failure on a scale never before seen around the world ... All the Americans in the bus could not understand why all of us non-Americans were laughing out loud.
