Rich Exner
Plain Dealer Reporter

"Where do you think you're going?" a friend shouted sarcastically to Dave Movius as he emerged in the Key Tower lobby from his 40th-floor office.

The answer was obvious to about anyone in downtown Cleveland and much of the region yesterday afternoon: Nowhere -- at least nowhere fast.

The power outage effectively switched traffic to the slow mode - snail slow, as vehicles jammed the streets and traffic signals went dark.

Before catching one of the few operating elevators to the lobby, Movius had watched traffic with his coworkers from their sky-high perch, and counted 10 minutes while one car covered one block on St. Clair Avenue near Public Square.

"My 30th birthday is probably canceled," said Movius, who had plans for dinner and a movie last night.

Cleveland called in all off-duty police officers to help direct traffic, but there were more corners than police could man, creating a rush-hour far worse than norma.

Rush-hour commuters were forced to get off RTA's Rapid trains and walk along tracks in Cuyahoga County. RTA used extra buses to run a shuttle service for passengers who would normally have been riding home on the electric-powered trains.

Initially, some of the system still had power, but RTA stopped all trains because the safety signal systems went out. About 40 were running at the time.

"Only a fool would try to run an operation where you don't know the condition of the railroad," said Mike York, deputy general manager for RTA.

Passengers walked along the tracks to the closes stations, and RTA sent vans and trucks to pick up some passengers such as the elderly, York said.

But the buses weren't a fast option either. They were stuck in the same gridlock as cars for a couple of hours.

Generators got traffic lights working in some areas. And by about 6:30 p.m., the heavy traffic had cleared downtown.

Suzzane Colon of Parma Heights stood on Public Square making arrangements to get home, fearing she would run out of gas if she tried to drive. She had driven to work nearly on empty in the morning and many gas stations couldn't pump fuel in the afternoon.

Gas was available in some areas.

In Oberlin, where the power was on thanks to a city-owned plant, business was booming, said Bill Jindra, city council president.

But the availability of gas just meant another traffic jam formed.

"You wouldn't believe the gas stations in town," Jindra said. "Cars were sitting on the streets 10to 15 deep."