Electricity Is a Part Of Our Life

Nowadays electricity is such a part of our life and so much taken for granted nowadays that we rarely think twice when we switch on the light or turn on the radio.At nights roads are brightly lit,enabling people and traffic to move freely.Neon lighting used in advertising has become part of the character of every modern city.In the home,many labour-saving devices are powered by electricity.Even when we turn off the beside lamp and are fast asleep,electricity is working for us,driving our refrigerators,heating our water,or keeping our rooms air-conditioned.Everyday,trains trolley-buses,and trams take us to and form work.We rarely bother to consider why or how they run-until something goes wrong.In the summer of 1959,something did go wrong with the power plant that provides New York with electricity.For a great many hours,life came almost to a standstill.Trains refused to move and the people in them sat in the dark,powerless to do anything;lifts stopped working,so that even if you were lucky enough not to be trapped between two floors,you had the unpleasant task of finding you way down hundreds of flights of stairs.Famous streets like Broadway and Fifth Avenue in an instant became as gloomy and uninviting as the most remote back streets.People were afraid to leave their houses,for although the police had been order to stand by in case of emergency,they were just as confused and helpless as anybody else.

Meanwhile similar disorder prevailed in the home.New York can be stifling in the summer and this year was no exception.Cool,air-conditioned apartments became furnaces.Food went bad in refrigerator.Cakes and joints of meat remained uncooked in cooling ovens,and people sat impatient and frightened in the dark as if an unseen enemy had landed from Mars.The only people who were not troubled by the darkness were the blind.One of the strangest things that occurred during the power-cut was that some fifty blind people led many sighted workers home.When the light came on again,hardly any person in the city can have turned on a switch without reflecting how great a servant he had at his finger-tips.