I remember the CN Tower stations being eitheir weak or going on/off.   I was waiting to pick up my freind from the Go Train sitting in the car in the hot sun parking lot when the radio stations went off.   Then the train never showed for another 2 hours.   I think heard 680 saying about the blackout.  

I was between newsroom jobs for the only time so far in my career, at home doing freelance writing and waiting for my first child to be born (due at the beginning of September). Once the power went out in the early afternoon, I was jumping between trying to keep a very pregnant spouse cool in the absence of AC and fans (lots of cool baths!) and trying to see if I could help anyone in town with coverage... and tuning around to see who was and wasn't off the air. 

Very little from Rochester, Buffalo or Toronto stayed on (except for a few AMs such as WHAM and WXXI), but the power outage left my rooftop antenna frozen pointed toward Ottawa. Didn't have a battery-powered TV to use, but I had radio and the most useful signal here turned out to be CBO on 91.5. 

I did end up helping with some electrical stuff at WXXI AM to switch over to the generator, and ended up in a friend's driveway at 11 to watch the news on a battery-operated TV in his truck bed (from Albany, which was coming in on channel 10 with our local WHEC off). 

The power came back on sometime after midnight, thankfully, and it ended up being another month before our daughter arrived. I think I look back on the day more fondly than my wife does!!

(I also realized I missed being in a newsroom for a breaking story, and within a few months had signed on for part-time work at WXXI, which seems to have worked out pretty decently.)
 

Last edited by fybush (August 14, 2023 9:49 pm)