Spending July in Manhattan you can expect heat and humidity, but in a week we’ve had a blackout, a heatwave, and flash flooding!

Whether climate change has anything to do with the heatwave, or the Russians have anything to do with the blackout, the truth is that it sucks when nature gets extreme.

The Blackout happened July 13th, and it left a big part of Manhattan (73,000 residents, including us) without power for hours. Luckily we had just come back home when it happened. A few minutes later, and we would have had to climb the 42 floors by stairs… or gotten stuck in the elevators, as some of our neighbors did. Of course the sirens, mostly firefighters to rescue people in elevators and police trying to prevent looting, rang non-stop.

The heatwave peaked a few days later, reaching 100° F. But the flash flooding was worse, with water cascading down the subway platforms, and service being interrupted.