We may be in the dark till the weekend
Those of us in the dark may have to cope till the weekend. Schools are closed around town, too.
I had to Doordash coffee from Café Vito, bless him, he’s open. My battery packs, however, are not going to last. Beginning to wonder how long the food in my fridge will be safe.
SMD 10:59 on 2023-04-06 Permalink
Just got a note that might be helpful: “The Unitarian church is open during the day today until at least 9pm for people who need power and internet. 5035 de Maisonneuve, just west of Vendôme metro. It’s an accessible and inclusive space. We are also trying to mobilize our soup cooks.”
jaddle 11:39 on 2023-04-06 Permalink
Pretty much all of downtown still has power too – I’m sitting at McGill right now and all is well. Hooray for buried power lines! The BANQ would be another good place to warm up and charge devices, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it got pretty crowded today!
Shawn Goldwater 11:44 on 2023-04-06 Permalink
Yes downtown is shockingly normal. Kate, does your place retain heat ok? If we would just get some sun it would help… Some little bit of mercy here.
walkerp 12:17 on 2023-04-06 Permalink
Good luck, Kate!
Pretty neat just now watching as the weather finally warms and the trees shed their ice sleeves. It looks like it’s raining and hailing but it’s not and long cylinders of ice were crashing down for a good half-hour.
This weather phenomenon has been destructive but quite beautiful.
Kate 12:19 on 2023-04-06 Permalink
Place is a little chilly but tolerable. It’s an older building – I’m used to putting on winter layers inside.
I was listening to crash, crash, crash and wondering who was doing it – but it’s not who. Chunks of ice and pieces of trees are dropping steadily where I can hear them. Pondering the risk of going out vs hunkering down and losing connectivity sometime this afternoon.
CE 13:22 on 2023-04-06 Permalink
I went for a walk on Gauthier in the Plateau which seems to be one of the hardest hit streets (CTV had a news crew in the middle of the street using it as a backdrop). It was interesting walking down the middle of the street seeing small pieces of ice crash down around me. The sound of it all was eerie. There’s a park outside my window and it looks like most of the ice has fallen off the trees now, but there are lots of piles of branches all over.
DeWolf 13:50 on 2023-04-06 Permalink
I took the metro downtown and it’s like another universe. No ice, no debris, electricity everywhere, everything bustling like a normal day.
walkerp 16:16 on 2023-04-06 Permalink
And now it’s all gone, like the famous murder with an icicle mystery.
Mark Côté 16:50 on 2023-04-06 Permalink
I just lost power a few minutes after 3 in NDG. Cascading failures going on, it seems.
Shawn Goldwater 18:28 on 2023-04-06 Permalink
Yes whenever I have gone to the Hydro outage site that mysterious figure in the circle over Montreal – which I think means total number of reported outages – keeps going up. I haven’t checked in the last little while.
Very good coverage on CTV Montreal. They interviewed an expert whose name I forget but I am sure people here know. He disagreed with the premier and said its nuts that every roadwork project does not include a component for burying power lines when they are doing other underground work.
I know that point has been made here.
carswell 19:16 on 2023-04-06 Permalink
Just back from running errands that took me through several parts of CDN. The woods around the new HEC are badly damaged.
Nearly every streetside tree has lost at least a few limbs. Several have been split. A few have toppled and now lie flat on the ground with their roots in the air. All that is left of others are freshly sawed stumps and a pile of sawdust. Parts and sometimes all of upright confers are permanently bent out of shape. A few side streets remain blocked to traffic and several neighbourhoods and businesses are still in the dark.
Reports say Lafontaine Park is a disaster area. Mount Royal must be too.
Today it feels like the city is in an abusive relationship with nature.
Shawn Goldwater 19:40 on 2023-04-06 Permalink
Looking at the hydro map it seems to me that they’ve made a dent in western Outremont and eastern CDN, around Darlington. But it seems like very slow going…