Reply to Ontario/Eastern U.S. Blackout 2003
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I don't know if many of you have heard but at 4:10 pm EST yesterday we experienced a complete blackout in the province of Ontario and the states of New York, Ohio, Michigan and others. Currently we are in hour 15 of the blackout and only 50% of Ontario has had their power restored. They're saying it could be another 48 hours before things return to normal. The blackout is affecting 50 million people, and still no one knows why this has happened.
You can imagine the effect this has been having. I was at work when it happened and the drive home was an absolute nightmare. A 36 km/21 mile or so trip took me over 3 hours to complete. There were no working traffic lights so crossing major Toronto intersections was extremely dangerous. People were generally courteous and we even had pedestrians standing in intersections and directing traffic. Streetcars sat abandoned in the streets and all businesses were closed. I was running out of gas on the way home but there were no gas stations open as it takes electricity to pump gas. It was absolutely bizarre to have nowhere to get gas or buy anything at 6 o'clock in the evening in Canada's largest city, almost like a ghost town.
Everything came to a complete stop. We had people trapped in the subways for hours as there was no electricity to help evacuate them. As I was listening to my radio on my MP3 player last night at 11 pm in the dark they were saying that there were still people trapped in elevators all over the city 7 hours after the blackout occured. I live 15 kms from Toronto and from my 16th floor balcony I get a very good view of all the surrounding cities. It was so strange to see no lights at all during the night - business lights, street lights. The only thing lit up were the emergency lights outlining the CN Tower. It was beautiful, however, to be able to see all the stars in the sky.
I was lucky - I had my power restored at around 4:30 am this morning. However, we are being told to conserve power as the power supply could overload again easily and further blackouts are still possible. It's going to be tough as the humidex factor today is supposed to reach 40 degrees celcius and 50 million people are being told to not to turn on their air conditioners. I know I'm sweltering. Water is also a problem as there is only a 24-hour reserve supply so we are being told to not even do things like flush the toilet.
Whatever the inconvenience this has been, it has been so heartening to see how people have pulled together. Regular people were directing traffic to help others get home, people have been out meeting their neighbours and generally helping one another.
Has anyone been hearing about what's been going on here in North America? Is there anyone out there who was also affected by this?
You can imagine the effect this has been having. I was at work when it happened and the drive home was an absolute nightmare. A 36 km/21 mile or so trip took me over 3 hours to complete. There were no working traffic lights so crossing major Toronto intersections was extremely dangerous. People were generally courteous and we even had pedestrians standing in intersections and directing traffic. Streetcars sat abandoned in the streets and all businesses were closed. I was running out of gas on the way home but there were no gas stations open as it takes electricity to pump gas. It was absolutely bizarre to have nowhere to get gas or buy anything at 6 o'clock in the evening in Canada's largest city, almost like a ghost town.
Everything came to a complete stop. We had people trapped in the subways for hours as there was no electricity to help evacuate them. As I was listening to my radio on my MP3 player last night at 11 pm in the dark they were saying that there were still people trapped in elevators all over the city 7 hours after the blackout occured. I live 15 kms from Toronto and from my 16th floor balcony I get a very good view of all the surrounding cities. It was so strange to see no lights at all during the night - business lights, street lights. The only thing lit up were the emergency lights outlining the CN Tower. It was beautiful, however, to be able to see all the stars in the sky.
I was lucky - I had my power restored at around 4:30 am this morning. However, we are being told to conserve power as the power supply could overload again easily and further blackouts are still possible. It's going to be tough as the humidex factor today is supposed to reach 40 degrees celcius and 50 million people are being told to not to turn on their air conditioners. I know I'm sweltering. Water is also a problem as there is only a 24-hour reserve supply so we are being told to not even do things like flush the toilet.
Whatever the inconvenience this has been, it has been so heartening to see how people have pulled together. Regular people were directing traffic to help others get home, people have been out meeting their neighbours and generally helping one another.
Has anyone been hearing about what's been going on here in North America? Is there anyone out there who was also affected by this?
