Blackout in Miami

Florida experienced a massive blackout today.

When the lights went out, I walked around downtown Miami to hear a handful of rumors. The streets were smoky, and smelled of fire. Between the library and the South Florida Historical Museum, a ventilator was billowing with black smoke.

“A generator beneath the library blew up,” said a man sitting on a bench, outside Government Center.

“The power’s out? Fine by me,” he said, pulling a hardback murder mystery from his back pack.

“I’m an I-T tech in that building up there. I’m still getting paid, so now I’ll actually be getting paid to do something I like,” he said, turning to the page where he had last left off.

Some cell phones were working, some weren’t. Various text-messages coming into my vicinity claimed a power outage from Daytona to Homestead. Still didn’t know why though.

A few hours later, we heard that Coconut Grove’s power was back on. Towards Biscayne’s skyline, the metro-rail could once again be seen traveling its singular course north to south.

In Overtown, we were still in darkness.

“It’s because we’re in the ghetto,” a coworker said.

But eventually, an hour later, our power came back on as well. Our boss told us there was a problem with FP&L, and that an outage had occurred from Tampa to the Keys.

Ever the cynic, I thought this would make the perfect case for FP&L to get their new power plant built in the Everglades.

My mom in Lake Wales said her power hadn’t wavered, but my brother in Melbourne had been sent home from work due to the outage. It felt like a hurricane except without the wind, the rain and destruction—just the pleasant disruption of daily routines across the state.