The Big Crash
I was pissed off all week at work because my new computer kept crashing on me.
And then virtually the whole of northeasern North America goes and crashes!
When the lights went out at work, just after 4pm, it didn't seem that unusual, since we get the odd power failure in the building every now and then. But for all the radios people had at work stations and in their offices, not one had batteries! So people started phoning their spouses and friends in other parts of the city, and the picture started coming together that this was a much bigger problem. The whole city, it looked like, at that point.
Ray, over at the Royalty Payments department, phoned his mother in Vancouver, and she had been watching CNN and Newsworld, and that's when we started to see that it was a problem involving more than just the city. I was in my boss's office, and we phoned my parents in P.E.I. They had power, and they held the phone up to the TV, so we got the story from CNN.
Then, as it became obvious that we were done for the day, it became a question of getting home. I work in the extreme northeast of Scarborough, and I live in eastern Toronto, normally a one-hour commute by subway and bus. With the subways obviously knocked out, and intersections without traffic lights, it wasn't looking good. I started the journey by getting a lift with my boss, who lives downtown, but as the radio told us stories of traffic gridlock, he was getting anxious about the side-trip he would have to make down the Don Valley Parkway (known affectionately as the Don Valley Parking Lot during normal rush-hour traffic) to drop me off. So I bailed out and hopped on a bus, thinking it would be a wiser choice than getting stuck in gridlocked traffick for hours and possibly running out of gas.
Not sure if it was the best choice. The first bus was jam-packed and hot as hell. Inching along down car-congested Neilson Road. Most intersections weren't too bad, although some drivers have no idea how to behave when a formerly traffic-lighted intersection becomes a 4-way stop. But at least I felt pretty safe in the bus. The RT at Scarborough Town Centre was knocked out, of course, so I had to catch a bus (which I waited about 25 minutes for) to Kennedy Station, where I would normally transfer to the subway. There I caught a bus to Main Street station, and then another bus to get me home.
The only food I had in the house that didn't require electricity to prepare was cereal. So I had a few bowls and then got out the candles and flashlights. I spent the evening in the candle-lit basement, playing my acoustic guitar.
The power came back on around 1:30. We ran the central air-conditioning briefly, just to cool off the house a little. It was so muggy outside, having the windows open didn't provide any relief. Just more hot air. I slept in the basement because it was cooler and quieteróthe people next door were sitting in their backyard, having a bit of a party.
I had heard before I went to bed that the premier had declared a state of emergency in the province and was urging non-essential people not to go to work on Friday. I got up at 7:30 and tried to phone work, but just got a busy signal. Without knowing whether or not they had power there, there wasn't much sense of going in. I phoned again later in the morning, but still got a busy signal.
Woo! Day off!
The power has gone off briefly a couple of times, so there's no knowing how stable the grid is. I better go out and try to get some food and some money and maybe some extra batteries and candles and suchóif I can.
