A year ago this weekend, a Blackout of unprecedented proportions coated half of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States in total darkness. Due to a series of electrical transmission line shutdowns, more than 50 million people were without power across parts of the United States and Canada in less than five minutes.

I will never forget both the moment the Blackout occurred or the events I endured both the day the lights went out and the rest of the weekend. It was about 4:00pm on Thursday, August 14th and my assistant Jeanine and I were re-organizing our boss Allan’s office. At one point, I turned to hand her something to put away – and before I could finish telling her where to place the item – the entire office lost power as if someone pulled every plug out of the wall at once. Immediately, everyone in my office ran into the hallways and started asking what was going on. As we tried to find out, we were getting word that the power loss we were experiencing was not confined to just our building. In fact, we learned that the entire block was out, as was Downtown, and Midtown, and Manhattan, and the Outer Boroughs, and New Jersey, and Pennsylvania – until we realized that this Blackout stretched across the country and beyond – and we were now in the middle of the largest loss of power in world history.

At my Commissioner’s orders, we all gathered together and evacuated the building. We also coordinated an effort to use all available City vehicles to get everybody home – as travel was impossible due the fact that both the entire subway system and traffic light grid were completely inoperable. As people were separating into groups to begin the long journey home, I volunteered to take my friend Diane and my co-worker Frances, which put me on a course for Harlem – over ten miles from TLC Headquarters. Normally, ten miles is nothing – but when the entire City is without power – ten miles may as well have been a ten thousand – because it took us one-and-a-half hours to travel only two miles.

My plans for that Thursday night were to go home and prepare for the arrival of Mary, who was visiting me for the first time since I met her in June of 2002. Very eager to see her, I planned to go home, clean my house – and get a restful nights sleep so I can be ready for what was going to be an incredible weekend. But instead, I was stuck in my City car in Midtown Manhattan with no air-conditioning and an engine that was seconds from overheating. At one point, I had no choice but to shut the car off let the engine cool a bit. With nowhere to go and nothing to do, I decided to try and help rather than do nothing – so I actually tried to direct traffic. With my badge around my neck and the desire to get all of us home as fast as possible – I tried my best to move the hundreds of gridlocked vehicles on their way.

To be honest, it was pretty scary. With no traffic lights to guide me and no knowledge of the City’s traffic patterns, I simply stopped one row of vehicles to let the other row through – only to switch and repeat the pattern over and over again. After a few tries which seemed to go well – my fellow New Yorkers lost patients and all started coming at me at the same time. At one point, vehicles from four different directions moved into the intersection at the same time, resulting in a hopeless Rubix Cube of cars that could only be fixed by airlifting the cars out of their anger-driven Jigsaw puzzle.

After giving up on directing traffic when an actual traffic cop arrived, I jumped back in my car and once we finally moved, drove the two ladies to a corner and explained that I could not take them any farther. I was low on gas, high on engine temperature – and concerned that I might not make it home myself. So I said goodbye to my two passengers and began my impossible trek home, which took me another four hours. Through hopeless traffic, crowded streets and mass confusion, I made it home by 12:30am – and still managed to find a much needed cold beer.

The next day, I worked at the OEM Command Center, which was obviously activated due to the emergency condition. As I sat there and watched the power slowly come back on throughout the City, Mary’s flight kept getting cancelled, reinstated, delayed and re-routed. By the time she finally made it here, we once again had power and despite a weekend’s-long luggage debacle thanks to Delta – still managed to salvage a wonderful weekend out of a chaotic one.

While the entire experience of “The Blackout of 2003” as it is now known was an inconvenience to say the least, it was also an exciting and memorable one. I remember, as I drove through the City, how electric everyone was despite the fact that nobody had any power. From providing each other food and ice, to holding community barbecues, to offering free shelter to complete strangers, New Yorkers showed many of the characteristics we displayed after the attacks of September 11th. In a moment of crisis and uncertainty – we once again were there for each other and came together instead of falling apart. As I did during those crucial days following September 11th, I commend my fellow New Yorkers for showing that we are ready for anything – and are always at our best at the worst of times.

It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since the Blackout. Since then, the power has stayed on, the world’s electrical grids are being inspected and enhanced – and we once again lived through history. Events like that are moments that define a time in a person’s life, become a marker for events and chapters of our evolution – and create an almost picture perfect reminder of exactly where we were and what we were doing the moment they occurred. For the rest of our lives, we will be able to playback almost every detail of our actions, our re-actions – and our emotions from that day. And whether the event is a natural disaster, a technological shutdown – or an enemy attack – that event will be remembered as one of the most important – and most powerful of our lives.