In November of 1965 a great blackout spread across the northeastern United States and parts of Canada. 30 million people were affected and Lynn Lowin was one of them. Now in her senior years, she wanted to finally tell her inspiring tale from 61 years ago, so reached out to Good News Network.
During that power blackout, more than 800,000 riders were trapped in the subway—including Lynn. Here’s her report:
“Traveling by subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan, the train suddenly stopped and all the lights went out. I remember thinking I was going to be late for my orthodontist appointment if they didn’t fix it quickly.
I had no way of knowing that this was no ordinary power outage; it was massive.
There is a ‘third rail’ in a subway system that can be very dangerous if anyone should step on it, so none of us wanted to leave our subway car and take the risk of sudden death. Even if we knew which rail was the third one, we weren’t able to see in the darkness that surrounded us.
As the hours went by, we began to feel almost at home with the people in our subway car.
People began to share whatever food they had. I was given half a doughnut and, in turn, I shared part of the peanut butter sandwich my mother had packed for me that morning.
Of course, there were no cells phone in those days and, stuck as we were in a tunnel in the East River, we had no information. Some people thought there was a bombing in which case being in a tunnel wasn’t so bad. Others were fearful that we would never escape.
But, more and more people began to talk to one another, encourage each other and try and lift the spirits of the strangers who were rapidly becoming their neighbors.
Two nurses and a doctor walked through all the subway cars to see if anyone was hurt or needed help.
Six hours later, we were rescued.
As we followed the firefighters and police officers leading us through the dark tunnels, I was conscious of being thankful not only for our rescue, but for all the people who reached out to one another to keep our spirits up.
I was less scared, because I was not alone.
That is the lesson I learned from that experience and carried with me throughout my life.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Only five reports of looting in New York City were recorded during the 1965 blackout. It was said to be the lowest amount of crime on any night in the city’s history, since the year records were first kept.
Volume 27, Issue 4 of The Subway Sun—a series of posters placed in subway cars—was created to thank subway riders for calmly responding to the Northeast blackout of 1965
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