The Ottawa Tornados and life

I was on Steemit when the power went out Friday. I had made a post and my last upvote was just before 6 pm. There had been a generalized tornado warning and looking outside, the sky was dark, the temperature suspiciously warm, and the wind was gusting but not bad enough to remove my patio umbrella. A light rain started falling.

Minutes later, sudden strong gusts and horizontal rain chased me back inside from the verandah where I had been watching. Then just as suddenly, stillness and quiet again. This was a deep quiet devoid of any sounds like the low hum of a refrigerator.

On the rare occasions when we lose power, it's usually back in less than an hour so I grabbed a music theory book and sat near the window to wait it out. I was reading in semi-darkness when the doorbell rang and my friend, Sherpa, stood there. He had been driving as the storm hit but with downed trees and hydro poles, the police waved him in a direction he wasn't intending to go. Ending up near my darkened neighborhood, he figured I might want to go out for dinner, you know, to some place with lights.

We headed out. That's when I took the photo of the rainbow and the sunset from the car, after all danger had passed. By now we knew there had been a tornado and there were large power outages, and it was as though the late rush hour never ended. Clearly everyone had the same idea of eating out. We just didn't know how many were affected. Sherpa knew there was still power in pockets but getting anywhere was slow with half the traffic lights out. Later, I learned there were 400 traffic lights out across the city.

Incidentally, before I forget to mention it, electrical power is still called hydro here, a nod to our original form of power generation even though we have many others too.

We made a quick stop at Sherpa's house which surprisingly still had lights on. Sherpa needed to grab a guitar for the first open mic and jam of the new season and where we were going after dinner. We had checked first - the Legion still had power. While I waited, I opened Facebook and was surprised when it prompted me to register that I was safe. Uh-oh, another clue that things were worse than we knew. I called out to Sherpa that he should do the same.

All the bars and restaurants were packed but we got into one after a short wait. Afterwards, we headed out to our open mic and jam. News of what happened trickled in throughout the evening.

At the nearby Carp Fair, they saw the tornado warnings and herded everyone into the arena. The tornado touched down 10 km away from there in a little place called Dunrobin then kept going. We heard those folks had a 3 minute warning before houses were flattened.

Tornados have the appearance of funnels. They're a whirling vortex of wind with a center of low pressure that can suck the roof right off a house while the fierce side winds batter what's left. On Friday, parts of Dunrobin, Ottawa, and Gatineau were hit by two tornados. Winds reaching 260 km/h hit Dunrobin, cutting a swath of destruction a kilometer wide for 40 kms. The second tornado cut across the southern part of Ottawa downing hydro poles, damaging houses, uprooting trees, and hitting a major transformer station with 220-230 km/h winds.

It's strange how a tornado can hit one house or neighborhood then lift up and miss the next as it skips around. Some households can be completely devastated while, in others, life goes on almost as usual, and it's all luck. While they touched down 10 and 20 km away from my place, I never felt I was in any danger.

That night, I put myself to bed by the light from my iPad, thinking I was one of 175,000 Hydro Ottawa customers without power. This could take awhile.

Uncertainty and inconvenience
are nothing compared to
people who have lost everything.

I will admit to feeling a little off as the severity of the situation sank in. I will call it that "dodged a bullet" feeling. Certainly there were many people shaken by the whole experience and by the next day the hydro companies knew 400,000 customers, mainly households, were without power. I think you probably know how it feels to have upset people all around. It does rub off on you.

The power companies worked around the clock with reinforcements arriving from other regions. For awhile, damage was bad enough, they couldn't even estimate when some neighborhoods would have their power back on. How do you restore it when you're missing a major transformer station?

Breakfast was peanut butter on bread and a banana. No toaster, no microwave, no stove, no coffeemaker, and it didn't seem worth it to start the barbecue.

Sixteen hours after the power had failed I was wondering what to do with my freezer contents, my meat. Plans to be out all day meant I better make arrangements for my meat if I ever intended to eat it. They say a freezer can keep its contents cold for 48 hours if it's full and if you keep it closed. Mine wasn't full. I distracted myself with my acoustic piano and those things called books.

By the time Sherpa called, I was completely focused on my meat. Does some primitive instinct kick in during a disaster? Fortunately, he had a second refrigerator with an empty freezer.

Heading to his house, I was thinking this is what it boils down to. I'm nothing more than a modern primate seeking a safe place to stash my meat, only it's in two boxes, and I'm driving a car. It completely filled his fridge freezer. My monkey brain eyed him warily and I asked if he was going to give it back later but he hadn't lost his hydro so he remained human. My empty freezer looked so sad to me that I took a picture.

As we drove off to the jam, in the height of irony, the song "Refugee" played on the radio. I moved two boxes of meat - why is this happening? By now, my new hobby was checking the Hydro Ottawa twitter feed for updates.

I charged my iPad during the jam and, for a second night, put myself to bed by its light. (Yes, I own a flashlight.)

Just past 1:30 am, I was awakened by lights but they came on two more times before they stayed on. Good. Things will be normal in the morning.

I had a busy weekend with plans for the Carp Fair on Sunday. It's probably good that I was out most of the weekend. Afterwards, I dropped by Sherpa's to reclaim my meat, my monkey brain wondering if he would fight me for it. I regretted not bringing a pointy stick. Where are these thoughts coming from?

It wasn't until late yesterday I learned that 51 houses were either flattened or so badly damaged they must be torn down. Luckily, no one was killed but there are a few with serious injuries. Hundreds of people were displaced and shelters sprung up for them. Others were trapped in neighborhoods due to fallen trees. And the most amazing things is to see how a city, its people and organizations respond to huge disasters. The newspaper compiled a list of things. I noticed the Ottawa 67s hockey team were among those giving free admission to everyone with no hydro. Free food to free shelter and entertainment - that's what I mean.

At the height of the storm there were around 400,000 hydro customers without power. Now it's Monday, and there are less than 4,000 to go. Amazing, and the hydro workers will keep going until all power is restored.

And that's just the start. 51 new homes must be rebuilt and that will take some time. Other neighborhoods look like they are part of the forestry industry.

As I didn't see any damage myself, I included references with photos. Sherpa had driven up Greenbank Road 20 minutes before all of the hydro poles were snapped off and those were powerful images with cars still driving by them, as are the houses that looked like match sticks. The power outages were worse than our famous 1998 ice storm.

References

Photos and video: Tornados rip through Ottawa and Gatineau
Tornado Aftermath: Life slowly returning to normal

Images

Photos from the iPad of @kansuze.

@kansuze