This blackout yesterday evening really brought back flashbacks of the Ice Storm of 1997. Still, it's been an adventure, albeit one that, for me at least, didn't last long. Power went out Thursday at around 4:30, and came back on in my area at 5:00 this morning. The city has been asking those people who work in non-essential services to stay home, but since my supervisor was coming in today, I had to come in as well. Since I don't require transit, I felt I didn't really have an excuse, especially since he had to walk several tens of kilometres to get here, while I didn't even have to walk one. I've had the CBC on since I got up this morning, and it's amazing how people all over the province have been coping. There are so many stories!I still find it funny that the initial knee-jerk reaction of the Americans was "terrorism!!!" It's really a sign of the times we live in. It's also interesting to sit back and watch all the politicians from New York, Ontario, and everywhere else that was affected sling mud and blame at each other on account of this. As of this writing, no one is really sure what caused this all to happen, but everyone seems to be sure it's not their fault. The last I heard, the blame had landed squarely on the Mid-west. And on Ernie Eves.
(Small aside here: I admit to being ignorant on how the province runs the hydro system around here, but every politician and layperson on the street who has any kind of beef against Eves seems pleasantly convinced that because of the province-wide blackout, Eves won't be keeping his position for very long. Because, somehow, he, and he alone, is responsible for ensuring we all have electricity all of the time, regardless of how we overtax the system. I don't know, perhaps this is true, but I still find it interesting that as soon as something goes wrong in this province, somehow every Anti-Eves contingent manages to blame it on him. And how useful is blame anyway? I mean, we have to fix the system, and fixing the system is not necessarily dependent on whose fault it is. Especially not with something like the electrical grid. Everyone responsible for the electrical system in New York, Detroit, Toronto, Ottawa, wherever, has to pitch in to make sure that people get the electricity they need without something like this happening again. )
Every time a huge blackout like yesterday or like the Ice Storm happens, I think of how much our society depends on electricity to live. Even our water isn't potable without electricity! Makes me think of this short story I read a long time ago about a future Earth where everyone lived underground, and all their needs for food, air, warmth, and shelter were supplied by The Machine. You couldn't even contact people without aid from The Machine. It was written in the 1940's and it's eerie how similar that society is to ours today. Given, we don't live underground, but a lot of people depend on technology to live. Traffic gets clogged up without traffic lights, looting and crime goes up, all our food goes bad, and many of us can't cook because we have electric stoves, and water isn't potable. You'd think we wouldn't take such things as electricity for granted considering how we depend on it.
Based on what I've learned from the CBC, because yesterday was so hot, there was a lot of demand on the power grid all over the Eastern region of North America. Then, somewhere, a power plant went down. And with all the power required, the grid in the region wherever the plant went down had to pull power from another area which in turn had to pull power from somewhere else and so on down the line. Finally, one power system was pretty much running power everywhere, and wouldn't you know it, but it finally overloaded and went down, sending us all into darkness. If that's really what happened, I'm wondering just how much electricity are we all using just to get on with our lives, and just how much of it were we wasting?
Fortunately, things aren't so bad where I am. Okay, initially, all you could see was a lot of people milling about in confusion, looks akin to those of deer caught in headlights. Everywhere, tempers started to break as people tried to get home with cars stuck in underground parkades, dead trams and subways and limited bus service, as flights were cancelled at the LBPIA and as traffic came to a virtual stand-still at most intersections. Then, a sense of community started to grow. People gathered on the streets and in pubs. Lots of good samaritans emerged from a population where I didn't believe such things existed. Civilians jumped in to help direct traffic. I saw a woman approach a rather lost-looking older man to offer him a ride to his home. A man at a store on Queen St. East offered free ice water to passers-by when news came out that the filtration plant was down. Some restauranteurs with gas ovens offered cheap food to those who couldn't cook. And there was surprisingly little looting, at least around where I was.
Sure, I had to walk up way too many flights of stairs to get back to my apartment (and about half-way up, I realized how badly out-of-shape I am), and sure, we have to live on the bare essentials of electricity and water until the system is fully up again, but in general, I've looked on this ordeal with something of a sense of adventure. It's a change from the everyday routine, that's for sure, having to go to work notwithstanding.
All in all, I am pleasantly surprised how nice Torontonians can be in the face of adversity. Being from elsewhere, I've grown up with a rather bad view of the narcissistic and selfish attitude of Toronto in general, and I came to this city with a great deal of reluctance on account of that. But these past few months, seeing how calmly Toronto deals with the various crises that have been thrown at it since early this year, and seeing all the kindness that people have been willing to extend to complete strangers, I'm beginning to think that maybe, the people here aren't that bad after all. :)
The best part of this whole occurrance, though, was being able to see the stars for the first time in the city. It was also very nice to go to bed, blow out the candles, and not hear anything as I drifted off to sleep -- no cars trying to break the sound barrier on the streets, no train whistles, not even the hum of the various machines that are always on in my apartment. Last night, as I lay there, I thought to myself: wouldn't it be nice to go back to a simpler age, when we didn't need all these machines, when seeing the Milky Way wasn't a priviledge for a few country-folk and when silence was actually something we all knew how to deal with? But the way we do things now requires all that electricity. Goodness knows that although I can do without a lot of things, I can't handle summers out east without air conditioning. (Well, at least not without a big cold lake or shower nearby.) And flushing toilets are, in my opinion, an absolute Godsend. So, while days without electricity can be fun, the truth is that we can't go back. Once we recognize that, and once we realize that there are limits to what any given system can handle then maybe, just maybe, we will learn to conserve and to treasure what we have.
Think about that the next time you turn on a light. Or anything for that matter.
August 15, 2003
Home
Stepping Stones
The Fountain
sKrATch Pad
Dec. 6/89
© Kat Lai, 2002.
Please e-meow me if you have any comments or suggestions!
Sign Guestbook
View Guestbook
