Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

So What Did You Do During the Blackout of '03?
I was having a fun time keeping the kids occupied by playing with them in Annie's room when it all happened. The ceiling fan went out and the air conditioner ground to a halt. I reassured Vanessa and told her that it was probably just too many people on the block using their air conditioners, which is exactly what I thought.

A couple of hours later I began to wonder. A look down to Queen Street showed that traffic was moving at a crawl, meaning that the lights were out. I took the kids on a quick expedition to the corner store in order to buy batteries for out various flashlights, and to get enough C cells to run the radio. One of our neighbours on the way said she thought she'd heard that the power was out as far as the Atlantic Seaboard, which I initially dismissed as being too ridiculous to be true. Got to Queen Street and saw loads more people than usual coming out of a TTC bus, and vehicular traffic trying to figure out who should go at the busy intersection at Woodbine. At this point I figured it must be pretty big, whatever it was that was causing this. Got to the first corner store and bought several packs of D cells for the flashlights. A guy at this store mentioned to somebody else that he remembers the last big blackout in '65. "Last big blackout"? Uh oh. Then we went to another store in order to grab some of their few remaining C cells. Also bought the kids a popsicle apiece, since they, along with anything else frozen were suddenly on sale.

Got home, put the batteries into the radio and tuned into the CBC. That's when I found out the full extent of things, and that the neighbour who mentioned the blackout extending to the Atlantic wasn't kidding. I took the radio outside in order to listen to it while setting up the little pool for the girls – it was obvious they wouldn't be able to get cool any other way. My next door neighbour asked me if I knew what was up, and I turned up the radio enough so that he could hear the latest announcement about the state of things.

I put batteries into flashlights and put some once-frozen burgers on the gas grill to cook. Wondered if Erika was going to be able to get back safely from her film shoot in the Hamilton area. When the burgers were done I sat the girls down and gave them their meal, all the while listening to the radio in order to hear the latest news. At first there were reports about "knowing within an hour" whether or not power was going to be restored, and then that forecast was pushed until later in the evening, and then midnight. After dinner it became pretty obvious that power wasn't going to be restored anytime soon and I turned the radio off. I also went around and turned off all of the lights, air conditioners and whatever else might have been on when the power went out. I ended up reading the girls their bedtime stories outside in the fading light, and then packed them off to bed after ensuring that their windows were open, hoping for a cool night.

Erika came home soon after. Apparently traffic on the highways was nowhere near as bad as in the inner city, and she had no problem making it home. We sat in our Muskoka chairs in the backyard, chatting and watching a multitude of stars slowly twinkle into being, all while the sounds of distant sirens punctured the enveloping blanket of night. Other that the occasional siren, the swish of passing cars and the happy screams of kids having fun a block or two away, we both marveled at how quiet things were – no background electrical hum, and no droning of multiple air conditioners – just quiet.

Tuned into the radio again to hear the latest news, but there wasn't much new to hear, other than various politicos shooting themselves and each other in the foot. Kudos to the CBC for their excellent coverage. I can't help but wonder how the current provincial government is going to live this one down – and frankly I hope they don't.

Shortly before bed I got out the telescope and had a good look at the Milky Way, the Moon and Mars from our backyard. A real treat.

The power came back on where we were shortly before 5am on Friday. Various house alarm systems and street lights suddenly came on at once, which startled and woke up Annie. Some soothing words and a re-assuring hug and she was soon back to sleep.

We've been lucky here in The Beaches – other than a 2-hour stretch around noon-time today, we haven't had any further blackouts, though other rolling blackouts are threatened.