Ex-Lubbockites experience lights out in NY
BY P. CHRISTINE SMITH
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
 

David Wragg is one in 50 million.

The former Lubbockite and 1998 graduate of Lubbock High School spent Thursday night going between the Times Square deli where he works and his boss's apartment.

Wragg was unable to get to his home in Astoria, N.Y., after a sudden and massive blackout struck seven states and parts of Canada, said his mother, Marilyn Sue Wragg of Lubbock.

"He was stuck in Manhattan," she said. "He didn't get to go home."

She heard from her son, via cell phone, about 10 p.m. Thursday. He could not get in touch with his wife, Alkeda, because of the overload in the communications system in the city, so he asked his mother to keep trying to reach his wife.

Alkeda Wragg, it turns out, was on a subway car when the outage struck. She made it safely home after being rescued from the subway car after 90 minutes and hiking four hours, Marilyn Wragg said.

By the time David Wragg reached his mother, she knew more about the situation that caused the blackout than he did.

"He did not know what was going on," Marilyn Wragg said, "He called to ask me if I knew what was happening."

David Wragg and his co-workers had suspected terrorism might have caused the power outage, Marilyn Wragg said.

The group spent the night taking turns guarding the deli from potential looting and catching some sleep at the nearby apartment of the deli's owner, Marilyn Wragg said.

Bryan Bains, a 1984 graduate of Lubbock High School, was fortunate to have just gotten off the subway and home to his Manhattan apartment before the outage occurred, said his mother, Sandy Bains of Lubbock.

The investment banker had headed directly home after a meeting on Wall Street, she said.

At first Bryan Bains thought the power would come back on in just a few minutes, his mother said.

His home still was without electricity when she spoke with him about noon Friday, she said.

"His refrigerator is defrosting on the floor," she said.

She was able to get in touch with her son because he remembered he had stored away an old corded phone, one that does not require electricity, in a closet.

Once plugged in to the phone jack, the old phone worked like a charm, Sandy Bains said, whereas the cordless phone and the cell phone did not.

The massive blackout reminded Lubbock-area residents of a power failure on April 16, 1996, that impacted tens of thousands of people in West Texas and New Mexico.

That blackout affected about 750,000 electric customers and lasted about seven hours. It was caused when a worker at Southwestern Public Service Co.'s Tolk substation in Muleshoe performed a routine maintenance chore and something went awry.

Carroll McDonald, current director of Lubbock Power & Light, explained that electric sources and transmission systems are all linked.

"They lost something big enough that it took everything out," McDonald said of Thurs day's Northeast blackout.

LP&L, he said, has devoted a great deal of effort into "prioritizing" since the 1996 local outage.

Hospitals and the water plant can get back on line quickly, he said.

LP&L also is developing a list of top-priority residential customers who are on oxygen or have other medically qualified needs. In the event normal service to those homes could not be immediately restored, LP&L is prepared to bring generators to those customers, McDonald said.

While all three New York-area airports, as well as airports in Toronto, Montreal, Detroit and Cleveland, were forced to delay flights and briefly shut down operations, the flow of air traffic in and out of Lubbock proceeded rather normally, said John McGinley, interim director of Lubbock International Airport.

"I've checked with every airline and things are running smoothly and on time," Mc Ginley said Friday. "There have been a few passengers destined for LaGuardia (in New York) that had to be re-booked today."

Dorothy Timms, a travel consultant with Dillard's Travel in Lubbock, said the agency had not received any calls from customers with flight delays.

"From our end here, we haven't heard anything," she said.

Being personally prepared for a power outage or emergency will make the situation easier on everyone in the family, said Dale Milhauser, Health and Safety Services director for the American Red Cross in Lubbock.

"There are five actions for emergency preparedness," Mil hauser said.

The list includes making a plan with family members about how to communicate with and reunite after a situation, building a kit of supplies, getting trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid, volunteering to help others and donating blood.