Last Friday and Saturday we received a lot of freezing rain here in Toronto. A lot!
Needless to say many trees were adversely affected. Weighed down mightily, branches, both large and small, snapped. Everywhere.
Streets were blocked, power lines knocked down. People were left without electricity. No lights and, even worse, no heat.
To make matters worse temperatures were slated to drop from a low of a few degrees below zero the first night of the blackout to as low as -15C a couple of nights later.
I have to say, I was lucky. My power never went out. I guess those are the benefits of living in a condo at Yonge and Eglinton. I believe we have back up power here. As well, the area usually is pretty well serviced.
My parents and sister as well as many other friends weren't so lucky. My mother said the power went out at their place at 3:30 a.m. Sunday morning. She was luckier than a lot of others though. By 9:30 p.m. the same day their power was restored. Three days later my sister and many of my friends are still without power.
One odd thing was even though my parents had power their backyard neighbours didn't. I was over at their place on Monday night when someone rang the doorbell. My mother answered and a lady was standing there. She said she was the neighbour who shared the backyard fence with us. She wanted to know if her family could plug an extension cord from their house through the backyard to our outdoor outlet so they could turn on the furnace to heat their home. Of course we said, yes.
As well as dealing with no light and no heat people had to deal with damage to their vehicles and property. Not only did tree limbs fall on power lines and streets blocking access, they fell on cars and homes.
My parents next door neighbour's maple tree lost a number of limbs some of which fell on my parents' small, front deck. I had to go over on Sunday morning to saw the large branches into smaller, more manageable pieces so I could move them.
Making deliveries for work on Monday was pretty crazy. First of all the vans were coated in a thick layer of ice. It took an extraordinary effort to clean the windows well enough so I'd be able to drive. We literally had to use a chisel to get through the thick ice. It was especially hard on the side windows which couldn't be reached by the front window defoggers.
As well the mirrors were a bit of a chore. I did the passenger side mirror. I believe I did a pretty good job. Sid did the driver side mirror. Let's just say there are dozens of small scratches on it now.
Traffic was awful. Numerous traffic lights were out. Drivers had to treat them as all way stops. That made getting around on the roads extra slow.
It was pretty crazy looking at all the fallen tree limbs scattered about the city too. An incredible sight in some cases. Just incredible.
Anyway, power might not be restored to some areas for anywhere up to a week (including our workplace). Unfortunately, not a very good way to spend the Christmas holidays at all.
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