In June 1997, we moved to Montreal. In January 1998, Canada welcomed us with the biggest Ice Storm and power failure for a hundred years. The first ice-storm related riot took place in our living room when our three children insisted on going to school, but all schools were closed.
As it was our first year in Canada, we had rented a small cottage in the Town of Mont Royal, not far from the City Centre of Montreal. It was a quite usual Tuesday morning, January 6th, and the day before our kids had gone back to school after Christmas Holiday. We had hardly started breakfasting, when the lights went out. They didn’t come back for almost two weeks. After some time, we realized that none of the neighbours had any lights either. The TV set didn’t work, the computer was quiet, the heating was off, and the stove didn’t collaborate. Luckily we had a battery powered portable radio that soon would become the most important kitchen utensil. In a couple of days, also the exchange rate of batteries would go through the ceiling. So, in no time we learnt that there was a temporary power failure, but everything would be back in normal by noon. Because of the heavy freezing rain, the schools were closed, and the students were encouraged to hear the next day’s morning news about their possible opening. Well, they heard them the following morning, and the following morning, and several days after that. One of Mr Alice Cooper’s songs hit the top of playing lists that week. Even my working place, McGill University, was closed for a good week; it was the first time in its 177-year-long history. The reason for all this was a scattershot meeting of a cold air front from the North Pole and a warm front from Texas. They summoned in the eastern parts of North America, and apparently had some good time there. Their offspring, freezing rain, became well known to the public.
Eventually, in places in Quebec, the ice deposit was 100mm (4 inches) thick. It covered everything from trees to cars and playhouses, not to mention laundry that was left drying out over night. Those car owners, who tried to remove it by hammering with an axe or a hoe, weren’t too happy about the results.
Especially our eldest was eagerly waiting for going back to school as she had to earn a hatful of credits for becoming accepted to college. She had to do them all in one year as we had come to Canada only the previous summer. Anyway, eventually she got all the required credits, and was accepted to Marianopolis College, a place run by Catholic nuns. There are lots of young people who don’t even think about applying to Marianopolis. They say that the students there work like animals. Later, our two younger animals went there too.
In Canada, it was the first time that our “troika” had to attend classes, study, do their home work, get new friends, and argue about the school’s dress code in English. In Finland there wasn’t, and isn’t, any dress code; in the Finnish schools it is only important that you, for the most part of a day, have clothes on. Generally speaking, especially in winter, people usually do wear clothes in Finland.
Falling trees and ice filled roads hampered the so common evening and night traffic around the blocks. Car horns were frozen or full of snow. Girls, who normally wear miniskirts and plastic boots, had to find rescue in Inuit outfits. Our telephone worked all the time, but there were many whose didn't. Local hotels, which were soon bursting of the high number of people seeking for a shelter, got icy phone calls from those who no more were accepted.
Gradually, our six-member-family got used to the situation. The sixth was a little Lhasa Apso who only knew that a number of people, who didn’t change their clothes, stayed home. We used propane BBQ for preparing food on the balcony. There was still some sense left in our cold brains that we didn't do it indoors. Some did, for the first and the last time simultaneously. We were brave enough to heat the living room with artificial fire logs, and sleep the nights in sleeping bags in front of a fireplace. Keeping spark watch was essential; our dog shared the responsibility. Sleeping time was automatically regulated by the sun.
The sixth or seventh day it started getting colder as outside temperatures went down to about -20C. Draining the radiator pipes of our rented house, and those of our old next-door neighbours, fell on us. Before the storm broke, they had left Montreal for California for visiting a daughter who worked in the production team of a popular sitcom Nanny. I suppose Fran Drescher would have lost even the rest of her voice if she had been in Montreal.
Over these weeks, Canadian Armed Forces conducted house to house searches, first for trying to convince old people to go to shelters, and later for checking that the stubborn ones were OK. Several emergency kitchens were established in schools. In TMR, on a street not far from us, two elderly residents perished from burns caused by the escaped fire of their fireplace. Also there were casualties of hypothermia and carbon monoxide poisoning. According to different sources, the Ice Storm caused an untimely death of 20 - 46 people in Quebec.
Finally it was cold as in a freezer. It took several weeks for all snow and ice to melt; our freezer would do the same in one hour.
The Ice Storm of 1998 consisted of five small successive storms, which covered a narrow strip from eastern Ontario to southern Quebec and Nova Scotia in Canada, and the bordering areas from northern New York and Maine in the United States. The United States and Canada are situated, respectively, north from Mexico, in North America. January 9th, as the ice deposit had grown thicker, major pylons of the lines that carried all electricity to the Montreal Island, crumbled down. Only one remained in function. Luckily, it was the very line that served power to the freshwater supplying plants of the island. If the water supply sources had been affected, a catastrophe would have been complete.
Also we had to consider moving somewhere else. Luckily our Dean of the Faculty, who lived in the western part of the island, invited us for staying in his big mansion over the worst. So, we packed the dog and everything in our minivan, and temporarily moved to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue. Having a warm shower wasn't a bad experience. As it happened, the stay wasn’t going to be long. Soon we’re “back home” where no burst pipes, no food in the fridge, no washed clothes, and lots of snow work were waiting for us. Anyway, we had the power.
Still about a week after the weather had changed, quite a few blocks in downtown Montreal were closed for pedestrians and cars. Huge slabs of ice kept on falling from roof tops, and the safety personnel of the city and private properties had some hard time in fighting them, ASAP, down to the streets.
In Kurt Vonnegut’s book Timequake, his alter ego Kilgore Trout discussed a single person’s involvement in ongoing developments under times of crises. He said:”In real life, as in Grand Opera, arias only make hopeless situations worse.” Of course, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you may even jeopardise other peoples’ well-being. However, helping neighbours and a general feeling of communal responsibility was a major factor in the relatively low number of casualties during those weeks. The people had the power.
Sledge drivers, halt !!!
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Photographs numbered from top #1 – #6.
Photograph #3 of the freezer had to be taken quite stiff, and was later melted for publishing using Pirjo’s other, because of irrelevant Copyright clauses unnamed, kitchen appliances. Photo #6 would have melted in Q8, but the icy context was able to save it.
Photographs #2, #4 and #5, were borrowed from the Google Photos Collection: Google Photos The original Copyright owned http://www.meteo.mcgill.ca – permission for use applied.
The Photograph #1, from Wikipedia, published in accordance with the Creative Commons terms http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.
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