It was the “zombie-like” traffic lights that first alerted photographer Colin Gray that something was seriously wrong in Manhattan. Instead of the bright red, orange and greens, the lights sat dormant.

Armed with just an iPhone and a point-and-shoot, Gray and a group of buddies had crossed the Williamsburg Bridge on foot to get a first-hand look at the damage. Hurricane Sandy had passed through the night before and when they saw the empty streets and abandoned subway stations, they quickly realized that they were witnessing a unique moment in New York City history.

For one of the busiest cities in the world, this level of desertion could usually only be seen with computer graphics in big-budget movies. While the city has faced previous blackouts in 1965, 1977 and 2003, each with their own set of problems and coping challenges, Sandy is the first time a blackout has been paired with flooding and evacuation.

“We had heard that the power was out but didn’t really understand what that meant until we got over there,” says Gray, who waited out the rain and wind in a part of Brooklyn that didn’t get much damage.

At the time, Gray had no idea that in addition to knocking out power to more than eight million homes in New York and 16 other states, Hurricane Sandy would kill more than 100 people, cause billions of dollars of damage and bring transportation to a standstill, with some of New York City’s subway stations filled with water from the tracks to the ceiling. All he knew was that he had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and needed to act fast.

To make the pictures he wanted, his current gear wasn’t going to cut it. He and his crew hiked over to the MTV studios where Gray works as a photo editor. He grabbed a Canon 5D Mark II and his tripod and headed back out. For hours they scoured the area under 26th street, documenting a city lit only by car headlights, emergency sirens and the ambient glow of the upper-half of the city’s light bouncing off the clouds.

“It was surreal for sure,” Gray says.

The blackout caused by Sandy is also the first for the city since Instagram and YouTube, creating a larger visual footprint and document for the event. We’ve seen several photos series like Gray’s float across the internet since the storm, but none capture the eeriness or stillness quite as well.

One of his favorite shots is of a pitch-black street in SOHO lit up only by the glow of the Chrysler Building in the background.

“I felt like that one summed it up the best,” he says.

In another photo, a shuttered Dunkin’ Donuts has been turned all shades of pink and purple by the sirens of emergency vehicles. The area around the Union Square subways station, which is normally defined by an ongoing buzz of people, was so empty and unfamiliar Gray says that he and his friends didn’t realize where they were until they almost stumbled down the stairs of the stop.

One by one, Gray says his friends decided to call it a night and took cabs home, but he stayed out until the sun came up the next day. With no sleep he walked into work at MTV at 8 a.m. and was told to go home–they gave everyone the day off.

“I knew that I was probably never going to have a chance to shoot like that again,” he says.

All Photos: Colin Douglas Gray