Storm damage

I am a little late in getting to this post, but I wanted to share a couple of pictures I took the other morning when I rolled around my neighbourhood on the Paddywagon to survey the damage left by Irene as she passed through.  I have to say, we got off very light indeed, and for that I am grateful.  We had plenty of rain, plenty of wind, and a large tree that came down on Andy’s street, but outside of that it was largely branches, twigs and general debris.  Certainly I did not hear of anyone getting hurt in our area, so thank goodness for that.

The calm after the storm. It was a glorious morning.

The tree that came down on Andy’s street was a freak accident that could have had dire consequences but fortunately did not.  It is nothing short of a miracle that nobody was driving down that part of the street at the very moment the rotten-to-the-core tree decided that it had had enough of bracing itself against the wind and came crashing down.  It brought with it a complete pilon as well as a couple of transformers and all the associated cables that usually provide power to the neighbouring homes.  All of that coming down and landing on anything other than the tarmac would have spelled disaster.  Andy and the boys witnessed the whole thing, and were entertained through the night.

Tree on the ground...most of it already removed but the wires are still hanging down uselessly.

Hydro Quebec, the City of Dorval and numerous other crews were on site well into the night to remedy the situation.  Each has their own specific role and don’t even suggest that they do something that is not in their precisely documented job description, but that’s all OK as long as the teams work well together.  By the time they knocked off, the Hydro Quebec team that is, power was not yet restored, but not wanted to have to pay out overtime they called it a night.  One of the crew had the nerve (or stupidity) to confess to Andy the next morning that had they just continued for a few more hours they would have had the power back already.  But such is the way of the large monopoly-like conglomerate.  Customer second.

Andy and the boys were out of power for over 24 hours.  As we live only a few streets away we enjoyed their company for dinner and then for breakfast the next morning before school.  Toast, peanut butter and chocolate flavoured cereal.  You can’t go wrong with that.

We had lost power on the Sunday afternoon for about five hours.  Not long enough to be a real pain, but short enough that we could enjoy the experience somewhat.  Emma and her friend Christina set the living room up with candles and I got a fire going.  We played Scrabble to rules that certainly are not described on the instruction sheet and at this point I am not even sure I remember who won.  Wait, it must have been me.