THE LIGHTS in my hotel room flickered. In a split-second, I had my fingers on the switches by the door, turning them off with one swipe. Must be power overload, I guessed, thinking of all the fantastic Christmas lights in the hotel and the entire city.

I waited a few moments before switching on. Nothing. I was going to call the front desk, but even the phone went dead.

No, it couldn't be. This was San Francisco, USA. How could blackouts have followed me to this seat of First World efficiency?

And yet moments later, a female voice came on the hotel intercom, confirming my fears: power failure. The initial announcement said the entire block was affected. Later, hotel guests were informed that the blackout had affected practically the entire city.

News reports later said an electrician at the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. substation in San Mateo county had made an error while installing a new transformer, blacking out power to a million people in San Francisco and the northern Peninsula for up to seven hours.

Morning flights at the international airport were cancelled, and trading at the stock exchange was suspended.

It was 8:16 a.m. I was on my way out to meet the group at a restaurant on the penthouse on the 32nd floor for breakfast and briefing for the day's tour. I was on the 27th floor.

I had been out an hour earlier to hear Mass and have coffee with a friend who was visiting her sister-in-law in nearby Daly City. I had stopped by my room for no more than five minutes to pick up something. Had I gone straight to the restaurant, I probably would be stuck in the elevator.

Movements in the hallway caught my attention. A cleaning woman was coming out of a room. She could not say what happened, but suggested that it was best to stay put. She got a hand towel from her cart and tucked it under my door to keep it open so light from my window could filter out to the hallway.

What a relief to see one of the girls in the group from Hong Kong also in her room across the hallway.

As we waited for news, I looked out the window, watching the traffic down below. In the absence of traffic lights, vehicles reaching the intersection hesitated, not knowing if it was better to proceed or let the others coming from the left or the right cross first. From 27 floors up, they looked like remote control cars operated by inexperienced players.

Pedestrians who, on this side of the globe, are used to vehicles giving way, sometimes did the reverse, preferring to wait till the next oncoming vehicle was safely several yards away before crossing the street.

These people could learn a thing or two from Filipinos, I thought, amused. This was a normal, daily occurrence back home.

(Days later, in Manila, my friend said she had to take three buses to be able to return to Daly City when the BART trains stopped running. She had called her sister-in-law and asked to be fetched from San Francisco. ''She would have done so, except that she couldn't take the car out of the garage because the door was electronically operated,'' my friend recalled. So much for First World efficiency.)

Close to 9 a.m. the hotel staff, who were summoned to a meeting and deployed to all the floors, were knocking on doors to inform guests that emergency power was on and that an elevator could ferry guests.

The phone line restored, Betty Law of Cathay Pacific called my companion across the hall to say the group was at the lobby waiting for us.

By this time, three other members of the group had emerged from their rooms, all anxious to know what we were to do. We all decided we would not risk taking the elevator.

Thus began our flight down 27 floors. Leading the pack was a young American girl who worked in a Hong Kong magazine. She was running down the steel stairway so fast, she was always a floor or two ahead.

Most of my 12 companions were much younger, and I realized how lopsided this race was for me. Looking back, I wondered why I had to keep up with them, when the group would be waiting on the ground floor just the same no matter how long it took.

Somewhere between the 18th and the 10th landings, a hotel maintenance man opened the exit from the hallway, apparently to find out where the clatter was coming from. Upon seeing the fleeing pack he seemed ready to burst into laughter.

''We were making so much noise, weren't we?'' I said, catching my breath.

Negotiating the 27 floors took about 15 minutes. When we finally reached the ground floor, I was sweating all over.

''You should have used the elevator. It's safe,'' someone said.

No way, we chorused.

''Well, that made your visit even more exciting, didn't it?'' quipped our guide, Laurie Armstrong.

'You didn't, by any chance, stage-manage this?'' I retorted, my legs starting to feel wobbly.

''No, we wouldn't go that far,'' she said.

The group complete, she led us out of the hotel to begin the day's tour. Guess what? We were to walk several blocks to the Yerba Buena Gardens. And there was to be more walking in the afternoon and the next day.