It was a dark and stormy night
A very dark and stormy night!
Since my arrival in Ontario, I've been getting the summer I've longed for. In fact, it has been hot enough that each summer day may just count as two. On Tuesday, the official high at Peterborough airport was 36.7 degrees Celsius, and the humidex, I think, reached 47 degrees.
Wednesday was another hot and humid day, at least until evening. Just after 8:00, a violent thunderstorm blew in. Environment Canada had released a warning about the pending storm, but the suddenness of its arrival was still startling. Although lightning continued on for some time afterwards, the storm itself didn't linger. It was fast and furious.
A crucial point here: I don't like thunderstorms. Never have, and doubt I ever will. Now that I tihnk about it, thunderstorms (and the accompanying risk of tornadoes) are the only thing I do not miss about living in Ontario. (Not that earthquakes are much more appealing...) A few weeks back I read in some baby/pregnancy book that Bärchen could likely feel if I was startled; I sure was on Wednesday evening, and I wonder what Bärchen thought of it all.
Soon after the first winds hit, Gord spotted a fire across the street from us. His first fear was that a home had been hit by lightning, but thankfully 'all' that happened was that a branch from a weeping willow blew down on the hydro lines, causing first a fire and then a power outage. The local fire department came and investigated, but the fire was out by then and there was little they could do.
We spent the night in the dark. Fortunately, the storm was caused by a cold front, which meant the outside temperature dropped from about 29 degrees to 21 or 22 degrees almost instantly. Without electricity, we of course could not operate any of the fans in the house, so we were glad to let the cooler air into the house. More challenging (especially to a pregnant lady!), there was no running water, as the pump to get water from the well of course relies on electricity.
At 5:45 Thursday morning, a crew from Ontario Hydro arrived. By 6:30 am, power had been restored. I was truly impressed, especially since we later learnt that about 150,000 homes had lost hydro from the storm and only 30,000 had been returned to the grid by Thursday evening.
Through this, I couldn't shake the image of what would happen if this was a Hollywood movie: of course, I'd go into labour! With trees down, the drive into the hospital might have been impeded, and with visibility reduced by wind and rain, no doubt the drive would have been treacherous. That is, of course, if we could have even gotten the car out of the garage, what with the automatic door opener being out of service because of the power failure!
Thank you, Bärchen, for staying put. I hope my fear didn't scare you too badly.
Since my arrival in Ontario, I've been getting the summer I've longed for. In fact, it has been hot enough that each summer day may just count as two. On Tuesday, the official high at Peterborough airport was 36.7 degrees Celsius, and the humidex, I think, reached 47 degrees.
Wednesday was another hot and humid day, at least until evening. Just after 8:00, a violent thunderstorm blew in. Environment Canada had released a warning about the pending storm, but the suddenness of its arrival was still startling. Although lightning continued on for some time afterwards, the storm itself didn't linger. It was fast and furious.
A crucial point here: I don't like thunderstorms. Never have, and doubt I ever will. Now that I tihnk about it, thunderstorms (and the accompanying risk of tornadoes) are the only thing I do not miss about living in Ontario. (Not that earthquakes are much more appealing...) A few weeks back I read in some baby/pregnancy book that Bärchen could likely feel if I was startled; I sure was on Wednesday evening, and I wonder what Bärchen thought of it all.
Soon after the first winds hit, Gord spotted a fire across the street from us. His first fear was that a home had been hit by lightning, but thankfully 'all' that happened was that a branch from a weeping willow blew down on the hydro lines, causing first a fire and then a power outage. The local fire department came and investigated, but the fire was out by then and there was little they could do.
We spent the night in the dark. Fortunately, the storm was caused by a cold front, which meant the outside temperature dropped from about 29 degrees to 21 or 22 degrees almost instantly. Without electricity, we of course could not operate any of the fans in the house, so we were glad to let the cooler air into the house. More challenging (especially to a pregnant lady!), there was no running water, as the pump to get water from the well of course relies on electricity.
At 5:45 Thursday morning, a crew from Ontario Hydro arrived. By 6:30 am, power had been restored. I was truly impressed, especially since we later learnt that about 150,000 homes had lost hydro from the storm and only 30,000 had been returned to the grid by Thursday evening.
Through this, I couldn't shake the image of what would happen if this was a Hollywood movie: of course, I'd go into labour! With trees down, the drive into the hospital might have been impeded, and with visibility reduced by wind and rain, no doubt the drive would have been treacherous. That is, of course, if we could have even gotten the car out of the garage, what with the automatic door opener being out of service because of the power failure!
Thank you, Bärchen, for staying put. I hope my fear didn't scare you too badly.
posted by Melanie A at 7:40 a.m.
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