“52 Bizarre Moments When Instincts Told Them to Flee—You’ll Never Believe What Happened Next!”
I immediately began packing, and loaded up everything I would need for several weeks before going into work. I worked at a convenience store and I made sure to fill my gas tank before I began my shift. Before my shift was over the evacuation announcements had begun, and we were swamped with lines of cars fueling up to leave the city. 36 hours later on Saturday morning I was among the massive line of cars in the largest pre-Katrina flood evacuation in the U.S.. I didn’t get back to my apartment for months.
The “We” in my “We need to leave now” moment was the entire city.
I work as an engineer in a data center cooling plant. We’re responsible for basically everything in the building- mechanical, electrical, hvac, plumbing.
So the engineer I’m relieving tells me there’s an odd sound coming from the Con Ed vaults- this is where these huge transformers are that step down from 26,000 volts or so to a voltage the building can actually use- we are not allowed in those vaults, they’re locked and only Con Ed has they key.
So he leaves, and I take a walk by the vaults- I had never actually heard electricity arcing through the air before, but I knew I was hearing it then.
I called Con Ed’s emergency line and told them to get out there ASAP- a crew of two guys show up, they seem calm and disinterested in the elevator on the way up- “it’s probably just a contact chattering” they said.
We get off the elevator and start heading down the hall- the sound was WAY louder now, we weren’t even near the vaults and there was no mistaking it. Both guys stopped dead in their tracks and kind of hunkered down. I saw the color drain from them.
