Wind puts the lights out
A lot of people were plunged into darkness Saturday night as high winds swept southern Quebec. I’m stealing ant6n’s screenshot here (from Twitter) of the Hydro‑Quebec outage map of Montreal, posted around 1:00 on Sunday morning.
Lights did not go out at Blog HQ, but on the map I saw that I was a few blocks from dark zones in several directions. There were outages in blotches all over town for a few hours.
dhomas 11:01 on 2021-12-12 Permalink
The wind was crazy last night. We were out as a family and came home around 23h to find our “tempo” completely out of place. In the 7 years we’ve been setting it up, it has never moved with the anchors we put in place. Our neighbour’s tempo, which they bought this year, might have to be scrapped as the metal frame bent in a lot of places.
There were also a lot of large branches on the road to avoid while driving.
Luckily, we didn’t lose power, though. Doing the math, about 8% of households are without power, which is quite a lot!
Kate 11:03 on 2021-12-12 Permalink
I didn’t even think about tempos, because there aren’t any on my street. But there must be tempo carnage this morning!
qatzelok 11:36 on 2021-12-12 Permalink
I guess that’s another reason they’re not called “permanentos.”
Meezly 12:32 on 2021-12-12 Permalink
I heard that this was the tail of the tornado that hit five states in the USA? If so, powerful tornado!
Blork 14:09 on 2021-12-12 Permalink
Normally, if someone in our neighbourhood so much as sneezes we lose power (frustratingly, the places ACROSS THE STREET almost never do; probably 9 out of 10 outages only affect our side of the street). Last night we lost power twice, but only for a couple of minutes each time. I felt like there were big surges, too, but nothing got fried, possibly due to abundant surge protectors all over the house.
And tempos: the neighbour to the left was out in the wind at about 11:00PM removing the cover from theirs because it was half off and flapping wildly. Someone in the neighbourhood FB group posted “Anyone lose a tempo? Because there’s one blocking our driveway!” accompanied by a photo of a mangled tempo skeleton splayed out on the street.
Bryan 23:54 on 2021-12-12 Permalink
Wait. There’s a word for those things!?
I’m assuming a “tempo” is one of those tent shelters that people park their cars in. I grew up in a suburb outside Toronto and I had never seen one of those before I moved to Montreal. I certainly didn’t know it had a name. Is this a Montreal-specific word? Do people in other parts of Quebec have these? I have so many questions.
dhomas 03:12 on 2021-12-13 Permalink
@Bryan Tempo is a brand name. They’re the ones who popularized those car shelters you see all over town. It’s like the “Kleenex” of the car shelter world:
https://abristempo.com/
You wouldn’t have seen them in the Toronto area because they’re illegal there, due to their unsightliness. They’re actually banned in some Montreal neighbourhoods, too, like Outremont I think. For other neighbourhoods, there are usually rules on what dates they can start to be put up and when they need to come down. Some boroughs also have restrictions on the colour of the tarp.
To be honest, I’m really not sure if it’s a Montreal thing or if other towns in Quebec also have them.
Bryan 11:07 on 2021-12-13 Permalink
@dhomas Thank you!