lovesastorianyc

BURNING. HOT. OUTSIDE!!!

The east coast has been experiencing an unusual Heat Wave since Saturday June 7, 2008, and should be ending today, June 10, 2008.  It’s not even officially summer yet!!!

Astoria may be in the news this week because of this heat wave. In the summer of 2006, the Tristate Area, which also included NYC, and it’s boroughs, and Astoria, parts of Sunnyside, and Woodside, experienced not only a heat wave but also a 9 day blackout!! Many of my neighbors and I were miserable during this blackout. The apartment I was living in during that time only experienced a ‘brownout’—this means that there was partial electricity coming into my apartment. I was lucky that the lights overhead were working, but many of my outlets were not working. My refrigerator was working, but I couldn’t turn on my stove, the water in the faucets only came out cold, and my cell phone and laptop were plugged into one inconvenient outlet. They were advising all of us to conserve the power that we had so that it wouldnt cause further damage to the area– I couldnt turn on my AC. I was lucky. There were many other people in Astoria who experienced a FULL blackout, which meant that none of their outlets or electronic devices, equipment, were functioning. This included things like traffic lights and street lights! It was the oddest thing when I came back home, at Ditmars Blv and 31^st Stree—turn to your right, and it was all black. Turn to your left and the Street lights and some businesses were on. As a result of this blackout, many people lost all of the food that was in their refrigerators because there was no electricity coming into it for almost 9 days. What’s very sad, is that many of the local businesses who sold food products lost most, if not all of their inventory because of this. One of my favorite Ice Cream Shops, Emack and Bolio’s was forced to shut down because they lost so much inventory, income, and when the power came back on, it damaged their equipment. All of this put together forced them to close down the business. Today, it is a Jewelry shop. What a shame. Astoria is a neighborhood and community of hardworking people. Everything in everyone’s refrigerators and businesses is there because they worked their butts off for it.

So all of us in Astoria, and other parts of NYC area are curious to see what this week brings. After the 2006 blackout, ConEd was forced to make some repairs to our neighborhood, but many of us are sure that every single part of Astoria is completely fixed up. Many of us are upset at ConEd and the way that they handled this situation.

We hope that ConEd handles this year’s and future heat waves in a responsible manner.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting here with some iced water, relaxing for the day…

What do you do to cool off during heat waves?

Where were you during the 2006 Astoria blackout?

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