2000年高考英语全国卷 - 阅读理解A

New York 10 November—5: 27 p. m. yesterday. Biggest power failure in the city’s history.
纽约11月10日，昨天下午5:27，这座城市历史上的最大一次停电事故。

Thousands of people got stuck in lifts. Martin Saltzman spent three hours between the 21st and 22nd floors of the Empire State Building. “There were twelve of us. But no one panicked. We passed the time telling stories and playing word games. One man wanted to smoke but we didn’t let him. Firemen finally got us out. ”
成千上万的人被困在电梯里。马丁·萨尔茨曼在帝国大厦的21层和22层之间呆了三个小时，“我们一共有12个人，不过没有人惊慌失措，在这段时间里，我们讲故事，玩文字游戏。有个人想抽烟，但我们没让他抽。最后消防队员终于把我们救了出来。”

“It was the best night we’ve ever had, ” said Angela Carraro who runs an Italian restaurant on 42nd Street. “We had lots of candles on the tables and the waiters were carrying candles on their trays. The place was full—and night in fact for after we had closed we let the people stay on and spend the night here. ”
在42街经营一家意大利餐厅的安吉拉·卡拉罗说：“这是我们有史以来最美好的一个夜晚，桌子上放着很多蜡烛，服务员的托盘上也放着蜡烛。店里挤满了人，因为在关门后，我们让大家留在这里过夜。”

The zoos had their problems like everyone else. Keepers worked through the night. They used blankets to keep flying squirrels and small monkeys warm. While zoos had problems keeping warm, supermarkets had problems keeping cool. “All of our ice cream and frozen foods melted,” said the manager of a store in downtown Manhattan. “They were worth $500 000. ”
和其他所有人一样，动物园也有麻烦，饲养员们通宵工作，他们用毛毯给飞鼠和小猴子保暖。动物园在保暖方面遇到麻烦，而超市在降温方面也遇到麻烦。“我们所有的冰淇淋和冷冻食物都化了”，曼哈顿市中心一家商店的经理说，“它们价值50万美元。”

The big electric clock in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in downtown Manhattan started ticking again at 5: 25 this morning. It was almost on time.
早上5:25，曼哈顿市中心华尔道夫酒店大厅里的大电子钟又开始滴答运转了，几乎很准时。