12.22.2013 04:28 AM

Ice Storm 2013

Everyone okay? Leave your stories in comments.

25 Comments

  1. Iris Mclean says:

    In the boonies north of Gananoque. Amazingly, the power is still on as of 8:30am. Lots of people without power in the area. More freezing rain and wind expected today, so it’s not over yet.

  2. .. get out there people ..
    there’s lots of older folks need assistance
    or even just to check they’re OK for now

  3. ottlib says:

    It all fell as snow here in Ottawa. It took me an hour to dig out my wife’s car this morning.

  4. tdotlib says:

    No power in #ward35 south. Golden mile has power, including the movies.

  5. Cynical says:

    Here in Gibsons it is terrible: 5C and the 5 cm of snow we had day before yesterday has mostly melted.
    I love Ottawa but there are things I don’t miss. AC got our kids and grandkids here yesterday and for that we are grateful.
    Good wishes to all of you enduring the freezing rain. It has to be the worst!
    If you haven’t finished your Christmas shopping, let it slide. Family and friends are all you need.
    Greg

  6. Sully says:

    Mayor Ford just had a horrible press conference. Him, D. M-W, and the Deputy Major all starring at each other answering questions and dodging the one question everyone wanted to know: just who exactly is in charge? He should have given a quick pep talk and then turned it over to his Community Emergency Management Coordinator to brief on the operational aspects. Instead Mayor Ford repeatedly turned his back to the camera while pointing to the “X”s on a map. It was the worst map trace ever. Even untrained 2nd Lieutenants in the army could have done up a more professional map.

    I like the shops of the Mayor standing behind the Deputy Mayor as he discussed his telephone call with the premier.

    That press conference was exactly what Mayor Nenshi did in Calgary this summer, except by “exactly”, I mean exactly not.

    • Sean says:

      When council said they made Norm Kelly the Emergency Management head for Toronto, I just laughed because everyone knows they didn’t have the statutory power to do that. Rob Ford will be in charge of Toronto’s EM response until Jan 2015.

      Also, I am convinced he will refuse to declare a state of emergency just to stop Kathleen Wynne from getting any credit for doing anything.

      • Matt says:

        Toronto Police, Toronto EMS, Toronto Fire all sa they are fine on call volume/response.

        Toronto has called in other jurisdictions not hit by this for assistance. When the people in charge of police, ems, fire, works, snow clearing are telling him they don’t believe a SOE exists, when the have all available assets in the area already here, what is calling a SOE going to do?

        Councillor Denzil Minnen-Wong, the guy who led the charge to strip Ford of most of his powers AGRRES with Ford. No SOE exists.

        They can’t call in hydro crews from Durham, York, Peel, Hydro One, because they are dealing with their own outages.

  7. Derek Pearce says:

    Sigh. I’m in the Pape/O’Connor area, have had no power since 2am last night. Am at a friend only a 10 minute walk away on Donlands and she’s full power the whole time. So may downed trees in the backyards behind my house and on my street and on Cosburn. But I’m dry, warm, toasty with red wine and don’t have to work until 3 tomorrow so can’t really complian!

  8. Minnie says:

    This is all caused by global warming climate change effects oscillating between hot and cold in a chaotic manner; before it all turns to searing heat only caused by the CO2 GHG buildup.

  9. Sean says:

    When this is over, IE 5-6 months down the road, there will be a parade of sleazy consultants who will use this situation to their advantage. Watch it happen. Ontarian’s will pay millions and millions on enhanced disaster plans which solve no problems and will never be used.

  10. Ted H says:

    Up here in Northwestern Ontario, we get some cold weather but we don’t get ice storms, we are not on the same grid (yet) as Southern Ontario so we didn’t get the big black out a few years back, we have lots of plows so the streets are clear by early afternoon even after a blizzard. It is actually quite a stable place in terms of weather. And being situated on the oldest rock formations in the world, it is also geologically stable. It’s a great place to live.

    • Chris says:

      The worst part of being in Northern Ontario are the relatively longer distances you have to travel on potentially crappy roads to get anywhere. This year has been a bad one on the Trans-Canada.

  11. Matt says:

    27 hours without power from 3:00am Sunday until 7:00am Monday.

    Luckily we have a fireplace (wood burning), lots of wood and a gas stove so we could use the burners for boiling water for tea and making soup.

    Filled up 3 5 gallon water jugs with water and a bathtub full for flushin the toilets in case water supply was interupted. Luckily it wasn’t.

    Six LED lanterns, a bunch of flashlights, tons of batteries, glow sticks to use as night lights in the crapper, 2 full 20 pound propane tanks for the BBQ. We we set.

    Driving around the area today, wow. Lots of damage. Roads blocked by downed trees. Hearing some may be without power until the weekend. My house was very lucky.

  12. tdotlib says:

    still without power – since Sunday, 3AM now, in #ward35. Most helpful updates have come from our NDP MP Dan Harris. Councillor Berardinetti has been intermittent in her tweets. Last update from her, 16 hours ago! Ford has been rather abysmal in his ‘leadership’. Toronto is reaping what we’ve sown methinks. Fortunately my wife and I got the heck outta dodge yesterday morning. We’re lucky to have a place to go. A lack of ‘use’ of the warming centres is not indicative of people being ‘okay’. It just means the warming centres are few and far between and difficult to reach.

    Pretty ashamed of our civic leadership in general really.

  13. Paul Davison says:

    Took my 7 yr old daughter to scarborough town center (which thankfully had power) to see Disney’s ‘Frozen’ on Tuesday. Seemed appropriate. Was lucky enough to get the power back on (vic park and gerrard) just as we started packing up to head to the in-laws 😉

  14. Derek Pearce says:

    LOL I forgot to mention, my boyfriend is in Buenos Aires for 3 weeks where it’s 35, sunny, and cheap but juicy steaks abound. I have SO shamelessly guilted him about this while I’ve been holding down the fort and throwing stuff out of the fridge/freezer this whole time lol ! I think I’ll get a nice prezzie when he gets back next week 😉 I just hope the poor folks who STILL have no power get it soon.

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