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Stranded travelers are seen sleeping on the sidewalk outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal early on Friday morning.

Stranded New Yorkers awake

After sleeping on the streets, commuters try to head home

NEW YORK, Aug. 15 — In New York’s Times Square on Friday, hundreds of tired, haggard-looking commuters left stranded by the blackout awoke from their makeshift beds, lumbering into the dim light of the rising sun. Elsewhere, from Connecticut to Canada, people did their best to cope.

LIKE THE SCENE of a post-apocalyptic movie, some people wandered into the streets with blank stares on their faces, searching for any indication as to when full power would be restored.

More than 12 hours after the biggest North American power outage in history left huge swaths of the Northeast in sweltering darkness, much of New York and its suburbs were still without electricity. The subways were not running and many residents had no water because their electric pumps were not working.

Power grid officials called the multi-city blackout the biggest outage in North American history, dwarfing previous blackouts in 1977 and 1965.

Scattered sections of the city’s electricity grid were slowly coming back on line, but officials could not estimate when power would be fully restored.

In midtown Manhattan, normally abuzz with early morning activity, streets remained eerily quiet. Many who were stranded without lodging overnight were still asleep on beds of newspaper, cardboard, clothing or briefcases, while others shuffled over to a handful of delis that were opening.

Osvaldo Trigl, who lives in Tarrytown north of the city, had been walking around since early Thursday evening. “What’s most frustrating is that you can’t reach your family,” he said Friday as he ambled around in the vicinity of Grand Central Terminal.

PEWS FILLED WITH STRANDED PEOPLE

At St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church on Park Avenue, most pews were filled with stranded people — a few snoring — lying head to toe in the candlelight.

Thousands more had no luck finding shelter indoors.

At the Marriott Marquis on Times Square, hundreds of people were sprawled on its driveway outside locked doors, and on sidewalks, curbs and patches of grass everywhere, exhausted men, women and children rested their heads wherever they could.

“We’re from California, so we’re not strangers to power outages, but nothing like this,” said Laurie Couto, 41, who was visiting from San Jose, Calif. “This is phenomenal.”

A block from Grand Central, commuters lay on sidewalks with their heads on briefcases. “Everybody is homeless tonight,” one man said. “Now you get a taste of what homelessness is like.”

Temperatures, which slipped to the low 80s Farenheit at night were expected to soar back up to the 90s by mid-morning, further straining the recuperating power system.

Fearing that terrorists had struck the city for the second time in two years, New Yorkers were relieved when officials quickly ruled out a terrorist attack. The cause of the outage remained under investigation.

INCIDENTS OF LOOTING

Although the power went out in New York City at 4:11 p.m., right before the evening rush hour, the city adapted and overcame most of its problems.

About 20 people were arrested at a looting incident at a Brooklyn sneaker store shortly before midnight, police Commissioner Ray Kelly said. And there were a handful of arrests following attempted burglaries at other stores.

But the generally mellow city stood in contrast with the rampant lawlessness that followed the 1977 blackout, when property damage estimates were as high as $150 million. Mayor Abe Beame described it as a “night of terror,” and the power was out for 25 hours.

Power was lost from the top of the 102-story Empire State Building to the 214 miles of subway tunnels, and everywhere in between. The outage affected the power grid as far east as Connecticut and as far west as Ohio, Bloomberg said.

Amazingly, although people were stranded in elevators and stuck inside subway trains, there were no immediate reports of injuries. There were tales of extraordinary escapes, including straphangers who climbed to safety from a train stuck on the Manhattan Bridge.

The overnight situation in New York was duplicated in other cities across the Northeast where the blackout extended.

In Cleveland, University Hospital used its backup generators and had power, labor and delivery nurse Olga Kropko said, reported NBC affiliate WCMH. But “everyone is very hot because the air conditioning is off,” she said. “Our laboring moms are suffering.”

In Connecticut, The Associated Press reported that more than 57,000 people were in the dark and Metro North Trains weren’t running.

There was no power in Stamford, and people were lining up at pay phones because of difficulties using cell phones, the AP reported. Stranded commuters tried to hail cabs and buses and rent cars to get home.

“Obviously, it’s causing a lot of inconvenience,” said Sgt. Paul Vance of the Connecticut State Police. “Most of what we’re seeing are traffic issues with lights not functioning. We have no reported major incidents as a result of the outages.”

CHILLING IN CANADA

Canadians crowded outdoor patios late Thursday, awaited patiently for subways to resume and even chipped in to help direct traffic as Toronto, the country’s most populous city, ground to a halt.

“This is the time to be chipper, people!” yelled Dan Parkinson before rallying stranded commuters downtown in a rendition of “You’re the One That I Want” from the rock musical “Grease.”

While New Yorkers, with the Sept. 11 second anniversary looming, harbored fears of the worst, Torontonians appeared to make the best of a bad thing.

“I don’t know what’s happened yet. It’s just interesting to see what happens to a city when they have no power,” mused Jaegar Barrymore as he watched fellow workers milling in a city famous for its good nature and politeness.

“I’m just going to hang out here for a while, and maybe it’ll [the subway] start working again,” said IT technician Kevin McMahon, drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette. “Otherwise, it’s a long walk home.”

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.