Community Coordinator Myra Miller’s mothering instincts took over shortly after the lights went out in the summer day camp she runs at the Langston Hughes Houses in Brooklyn.

As the chief counselor of a program for about 30 kids, Ms. Miller felt compelled to remain at the site to look after the children whose parents were stranded during the Aug. 14 blackout and couldn’t pick them up.

“The other two staffers and I realized that some of the parents wouldn’t be able to retrieve their children,” said Ms. Miller.

“I am a parent myself, so I guess my mother’s instinct kicked in,” Ms. Miller said. Luckily, she didn’t have to worry about the safety of her own 8-year-old, Anthony Fortner Jr. He was dropped off at the New York City Housing Authority site just as the blackout occurred.

By about 1 a.m., parents had picked up most of the children. Ms. Miller and the two other counselors, Community Service Aide Nereida Martinez and Community Assistant Aisha Duckett, remained all night at the housing complex’s community center with the last three kids.

“We kept ourselves busy by playing table games, talking to the kids and cracking jokes,” said Ms. Miller. She and the other counselors are members of Social Service Employees Union Local 371. “The children actually were pretty calm,” Ms. Miller said.

On Aug. 19, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg honored Ms. Miller and several other New York City employees for their distinguished work on the day of the blackout.

— GNH