Edition: U.S. / Global

THE BLACKOUT OF 2003: THE STRANDED; In Subways, in Traffic In Elevators: All Stuck

Published: August 15, 2003

Their trains and their buses were not running. Their flights were canceled. Their cars were moving a couple of blocks an hour. They were trapped in elevators. Even hotels would not take them.

They were stuck, all stuck.

They spilled into the streets, fleeing office buildings and sweltering subway stations, swimming around cars and buses like ants at a feast. They had no idea how they would ever get home. So they trudged. They flagged down cars. They begged rides from strangers. They talked their way into the hearts of hotel managers.

Lines stretched out from pay phones, from bus stops, from hot dog stands. A huge parade streamed across the Brooklyn Bridge. In front of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, mobs of commuters stormed empty buses and refused to let them pass, yelling at the drivers to open the doors. Police officers yelled back.

In high-rise buildings across Midtown, security officers, janitors and mechanics pried people loose from elevators, often with the assistance of backup generators and freight elevators, and relying on advanced intercom systems to keep the trapped in contact with building staff.

By 9:30 p.m., the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square resembled a refugee camp. The hotel was evacuated earlier after its backup generator failed. More than a thousand people clustered outside the entrance, some of them dozing, in an area illuminated only by the headlights of two hotel vehicles.

Hotel employees passed out pillows, cups of water, fruit and stools. Tail-gate parties started spontaneously on the curb. There were six-packs of beer and bottles of water, sandwiches and pizzas, coolers of drinks floating in tepid water.

Monica and John Noonen of Orange County, Calif., visiting New York City with their two daughters, ages 14 and 8, said they were used to blackouts because they live in California. ''But at least in California, they tell you when the blackouts are going to happen,'' Mrs. Noonen said.

The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway was clogged with hitchhikers.

La Guardia Airport was like a huge campsite. There were long lines at the pay phones. The toilets were not flushing. They were filled to the seats with waste and toilet paper.

''I'm just listening to the news on my walkman and getting ready to spend the night on the sidewalk,'' said Keydra Johnson, 32, whose flight home to Dallas was canceled.

Outside Grand Central Terminal, dazed commuters milled around, hot and sweaty, waiting for someone to tell them how to get home.

''Why don't they have a contingency plan?'' wondered Marie Cerchero of Carmel, N.Y. ''I don't care that it's the whole East Coast. We're in the city. They talk about contingency plans. After two hours, still no one has told me how I will get home.''

On Eighth Avenue, Irvin Acevedo, 27, sat on the hood of a car and held his 13-day-old son, Irvin Jr. Mr. Acevedo, a locksmith, mopped the baby's brow and watched the gridlock. ''We live in Jersey,'' he said. ''We're stuck here now. I drove four blocks to get here. It took me two hours.''

Hundreds of stymied commuters milled around the entrance to Pennsylvania Station, overflowing into the street, huddling around radios, jabbing at cellphones. Most of them had the same plan: Wait.

Mori Mitchell, a secretary who works in Midtown, said she had walked down 45 flights of stairs. She had then walked for more than an hour only to stand and wait.

''I don't have any choice, and I don't have any alternative plans right now,'' she said. ''I'm just going to stand here and sweat.''

Thousands of people streamed across the Brooklyn Bridge, jackets off, perspiring. The scene resembled the panicked exodus of 23 months earlier, but the mood was jovial. Car traffic was jammed. Outside the Family Court building in Brooklyn, court officers behind tables were handing out cups of water.

Michelle Akinlade, who was half a block beyond the bridge in Brooklyn and was weighed down with two shopping bags and a shoulder bag, said she was headed for Canarsie.

''I can't even talk right now,'' she said, catching her breath. ''I'm just going to keep walking with everybody, keep going with the crowd.''

Ida North, 54, and her daughter, Angela Gruber, 31, visiting from Warren, Pa. with Ms. Gruber's children, Jacob, 5, and Matigan, 2, had checked out of their hotel in the morning. When the power went out, they were in Battery Park. They searched for a cab to take them back to the garage near their hotel, hoping to grab their truck and go home. But every cab was filled.

So they walked north to Midtown, carrying Ms. Gruber's children and a four-foot wooden giraffe bought as a souvenir. At the garage, they found their car stuck on the third floor. Ms. North said firefighters at a station on 58th Street told them they could stay with them. ''We were kind of hoping to get the truck and leave the city,'' said Ms. Gruber. ''No such luck.''

Photo: Outside the Port Authority bus terminal, on Eighth Avenue, vehicles were outnumbered by people who were trying to leave the city. (Photo by Gabe Kircheimer for The New York Times)