Getting stuck underground on the subway? Every New Yorker’s nightmare.
Sure, it happens pretty frequently for most of the city’s 3.8 million daily commuters, but usually only for 30 seconds or a minute, maybe two at most. But on Wednesday, Dec. 11, at 5:40 p.m., just after I hopped on the F train at Bergen Street in Brooklyn to go back to Manhattan to have dinner with my sister, it happened. A total shutdown.
This shutdown felt different than the usual pause in service. The overhead lights stayed on, but everything else went quiet — weirdly quiet — like no electricity or air was circulating in the car or tunnel.
Turns out, there wasn’t.
Soon the conductor came on overhead and told us all, “The power is out on the third rail. I’m not sure what happens next, but I’ll keep you posted.”
Groans, sighs, and the usual eye-rolling ensued, but most everyone assumed the train would be up and running soon enough. But when the conductor came on five minutes later and said, “Yeah, I have no idea what’s going on really, there’s no power here or at the stations. I know it’s hot, I’m sorry, so you can open the windows.”
We all kind of laughed at his honest delivery, but a few riders became a little more angsty after he said he had no idea what was going on. Could this be it? The next big bad thing?
Reporter Gillian Telling and other riders on and underground subway train without power between Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Gillian Telling/people
We didn’t have cell phone or internet access down there, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who had a fleeting thought that this was it. It was like the start of that Julia Roberts disaster movie on Netflix. First, no power. Next, bleeding from the ears. (Editors note: The film is 2023’s Leave the World Behind.)
I decided to play Block Blast to pass the time and calm my brain, silently thanking my 14-year-old son for recently telling me it was all the rage among high schoolers and downloading it onto my phone. (Reader, it is basically Tetris and it turns out it is super addictive.)
Soon, some people in my car were becoming more noticeably distressed. No power means no air, and the pouring rain caused the crowded train cars to get very swampy.
A young woman near me started asking if anyone had water. No one did, but she started talking to her seatmate and said that talking made her feel better.
Around this time, the conductor asked if any medical personnel were on the train. We could all hear a woman having a panic attack next to him. (A man, assuming he was a doctor, did make his way to the front.)
Eventually, a few frustrated (and brave?) riders began to leave the train, hopping from the opening in between cars to a narrow little cat track that ran alongside the tunnel. The conductor got on the overhead and said, “Please, do not leave the train, I’m telling you, do NOT leave the train. You don’t even know what’s out there. It’s dark, it’s wet, there are rats out there, and God knows what else!”
The entire train car cracked up. We believed him about the rats and God knows what else, and stayed put.
Throughout the ordeal, the world’s funniest MTA conductor continued to periodically pop on with updates about what was going on. “You think you have it bad? After this gets fixed, I have to keep working until midnight!” It would have been funnier if it wasn’t all frankly a little (okay, very) disturbing. He made us laugh, but how did he not have more info for us? Surely he had some way to chat with the aboveground world?
Eventually, he came on and said something that elicited some cheers: The FDNY was on its way to evacuate us. Soon, we were told to go to the back of the train, where MTA workers were escorting us onto the narrow cat track to the escape stairs.
Reporter Gillian Telling and other riders making their way out the subway tunnels.
Gillian Telling/people
At that point, everyone was able to breathe a sigh of relief. We were getting out.
As the worry lifted, we began talking to each other amiably as we made our way to the evacuation route. I spoke to a man who was on his way to his work party, hoping that his story of being stuck underground would appease his boss. The man on his way to the Knicks game said he was getting an Uber as soon as possible to catch the second half. The woman traveling alone with her daughter was happy to be able to tell her husband why they’d disappeared off the face of the earth for an hour and a half,
As we walked our way up the stairs to freedom, we were greeted by some kind FDNY firefighterstons of fire trucks, and the pouring rain. I had a bunch of worried messages from my family asking if I was alive. Our ordeal hadn’t yet made the local news or Twitter, so they had no idea what was going on.
PEOPLE reporter Gillian Telling and other stranded riders are evacuated by FDNY.
Gillian Telling/PEOPLE
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Of course, I was alive, totally unscathed, if not a little hungry and thirsty, and mad that I’d stood around in high-heeled boots for so long. It wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened to me, but wasn’t exactly fun either. It also drove home just how ill-prepared the MTA is in even the slightest emergency like that. No water stocked up, no means of communication for its passengers, no real info about what to expect, What would they do if there was a true medical emergency, a woman in labor, a heart attack?
The experience didn’t inspire confidence in the system, although, since I don’t have a choice, I’ll be back on it in the morning. Probably playing Block Blast.
Reporter Gillian Telling emerging from the subway after 1.5 hours.
Gillian Telling/PEOPLE
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