Merry Christmas everyone. Hope it applies at least a little to you. A useful link is the Toronto Hydro Twitter account which is being update constantly.
A rocking Christmas to everyone from the Bulldog
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Cranbrooke Ave “touched by the finger of God”
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Cruel chance seems to have condemned many Toronto homeowners to live on a street with no power on Christmas Eve while a street one block away has had electricity returned 12 hours earlier. That’s the way it is just north of Lawrence where streets like Woburn Ave and Bedford Park Ave remain in the dark since Sunday. One block north, on Cranbrooke Ave., power came back this morning. “I feel we’ve been touched by the finger of God,” said one woman resident of Cranbrooke. Two blocks south on Bedford Park, a homeowner was tweeting a plaintiff request for information about how soon he would have power. Many are familiar by now with the so-called “one-off” customers who are victims of a branch or tree that has taken out power to their home. But in this quadrant north-west of Lawrence and Avenue Rd, the streets reveal a pattern that looks like slats of Venetion blind — on, off, on, off. Who knows why? It is part of the bad luck suffered by hundreds of thousands in Toronto who have had to live in freezing conditions. It’s just that some are having more bad luck than others.
Twinkling porch lights South Bayview’s best Christmas gift
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The twinkling porch lights tell it all. Throughout Moore Park, Bennington Heights and along Leaside’s signature drive named Bessborough, furnaces are on and families can do some short-term planning for Christmas morning. Most people have had elaborate plans washed out by the ice storm and its nasty aftermath. A Lawrence Park woman who took temporary refuge at the Roehampton Best Western spoke with sadness about a family reunion at her cottage which will not happen. Modern homes still have endless tasks left to clean up. Cars smashed by branches, the actual edibility of food in the fridge, restoring all the electronic utilities to more or less normal. But for the uniquely blessed residents of this part of Canada, an important corner has been turned. There are still pockets of darkness in South Bayview and our minds can never be at rest as long as vast numbers of Torontonians in the west end and Scarborough continue to labour under freezing conditions. Hope is real however as Hydro reports the diminishing number of those without power — down to 115,000 metered households or businesses — and that dozens of skilled crews from as far away at Manitoba are trucking to Toronto right now to help out. Some are already at work.
Power restored to Moore Park Tuesday morning
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Sunnybrook transfered 6 infants in power outage
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The power outage Sunday at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre is the most serious of some 23 or more power collapses faced by the hospital just this year. It was barely a month ago that Hydro CEO Anthony Haines told the Ontario Energy Network gathering that Sunnybrook “needs a new power line into the hospital.” That urgency will be underscored again by this week’s outrage in which the hospital had to immediately transfer six neonatal infants to other hospitals to gain the extra margin of safety provided by being on the Hydro grid. Of course the hospital has five powerful diesel generators to pick up the load but it is the last backstop to a health-care disaster. Speaking in November Haines said “Our friends at Sunnybrook (Hospital) have had 23 outages this year.” He said outages were made of up 13 outright interruptions, plus another 10 incidents when the quality of power “sagged.” Hospital equipment is especially sensitive to even momentary interruptions, he said: “One sixtieth of a second takes an MRI machine down.” Power interruptions cause delays as equipment has to be shut down and re-booted, he said.
South Bayview stores back in business Monday
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The lights are back on along South Bayview. Stores and shops are open Monday and there was a good number of people on the street by noon. Tzatz, the women’s wear store has a hastily made sign in the window saying WE ARE OPEN. Toronto Hydro said that Sunnybrook Hospital would have primary power restored by today. The key health sciences centre has been operating on back up generators since early Sunday. But thousands of South Bayview homes face a dark and cold pre-Christmas. Inset, one lucky homeowner can bundle the family around a gas fireplace. On the Run at Mt Pleasant and Merton Street was definitely idle and bottom inset, a branch weighs heavily on a power line into a home in Moore Park. It may yet cause an outage. On Mt Pleasant Rd. things are still a bit rocky although stores are open even if they don’t have power. Traffic is confused because of traffic light outages all up the street to Mt Pleasant and Manor Rd. Traffic signals are back in operation at Bayview and Millwood and Bayview and Manor Rd. At a news conference this morning Anthony Haines, CEO of Toronto Hydro, revised the estimate of customers still without power to about 215,000. This he said represented “metres” not individuals. Generally, a metre might be considered a household or business. Mr. Haines said that critical services such as Sunnybrook and East General Hospital, and the two Toronto pumping stations, have been re-connected to the Hydro grid. He also noted that the next priority for Hydro is the so-called “big feeders” which had failed. They are sources of electrical power to neighborhoods. The repair of one feeder would immediately bring many households back on line. Mr Haines said the last priority are the unfortunate people who have lost power to single houses, or to just a few, in a neighborhood where there is still power. This has typically been caused by a branch bringing down a line into a home, leaving the service next door untouched. In some cases it may take until the end of the week to see all these single cases fixed. Power outage closes CNIB until January 2, 2014
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CNIB is asking all staff, volunteers and clients to stay home tomorrow (Monday) and Tuesday (December 23 and 24, 2013). The offices at 1929 have been struck by the same power outage that has closed most everything else on Bayview. All CNIB Centre programs, services and activities are cancelled until Thursday, January 2, 2014. Because of the power collapse the CNIB website is also
Tweeting hopeful to helpless at #leasidedark
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The tweets go from hopeful to helpless at Leaside Dark Sunday night. Bill Grill (otherwise known as Andy Elder) is eager to get his Laird Drive shop Grilltime open. Hope he did. Leah McLean asks that the Leaside fixer get busy and fix her lights for ”a girl sitting at home in the dark”. Jaime Stein said that he was drinking a (ahem) “dark” ale in the dark at Against the Grain. Hey, was that an ad? Come to think of it, happy or sad, buy an ad. Leaside Dark
South Bayview struggles to recover in dark
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South Bayview’s neighborhoods are hard hit by the ice storm power outages. Leaside east of Bayview and large parts of Bennington Heights and Moore Park are in the dark. To the north, outages are patchy but Lawrence Park and Sherwood Park have been badly hit. Traffic signals are dangerously without power. Those who know the area will note the absence of lights at Mt. Pleasant and Moore Ave. and at Bayview and Millwood Rd. The lights at Mt Pleasant and Merton Street are flashng a four way red, which is much safer. South Bayview is dark on both sides as is Mt Pleasant. The normally busy Esso gas bar on Mt Pleasant is closed.
300,000 in Toronto face blacked out Christmas
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Fallen trees and branches litter the streets of mid-town Toronto this Sunday (December 22, 2013) as more than a quarter of a million people in Canada’s largest municipality are without power. Toronto Hydro has estimated 250,000 in the dark but later in the day raised that number to 300,000. Across the Greater Toronto Area, it appears as many as half a million may be without power. Because of the still uncounted number of lines down in Toronto it is likely that many will face Christmas Eve, or maybe even Christmas morning, without lights and power..Hydro emergency sources were telling residents to expect service for snapped wires laying across vehicles to be looked after “in two or three days.” It is, as Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong put it, the worst storm the city has see in recent times. Hydro CEO Anthony Haines called the ice storm “catastrophic.” Mayor Ford held a news conference in the early afternoon in which he said that two hospitals, Sunnybrook and East General, are without power. This disconcerting news was clarified by Premier Wynne in her news conference in which she noted that the two hospitals are operating on back up generated power. She thanked those who still had electricity in their homes for welcoming neighbors who were caught in the blackout into their homes. The outages have occurred in patches of sometimes curious pattern through the mid-town corridor of the city. One aspect of this is the number of mature trees in that part of the city. Sometimes an outage involved only one home. Elsewhere, as in large parts of South Bayview, the outage is quite general. Toronto Hydro said it may be up to 72 hours before power is fully restored. In Ottawa, Prime Minister Harper said his thoughts are with with those who are without power. Photo via Twitter of Toronto after a long dark night of falling trees.
Salvation Army Band kicked out of Union Stn.
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The management of Union Station has kicked out the Salvation Army Band after more than 50 years of holiday fundraising because some merchants in the concourse claim the music is too loud. The annual concerts by the Toronto Staff Band of the Sally Ann are an institution to many people, and to the members of the Army. Because of the ban the Army has decided to remove its brass kettle solicitation from Union Station altogether. Apparently the Army was offered the chance to solicit but without the band. It seemed wrong to do that after such a long history of traditional “Merry Christmas” offerings made by members of all denominations. In many minds, the Salvation Army’s pledge that it will be “Doing The Most Good” with the donated money, touches the heart. For those who admire the Army, regardless of faith, we offer you a scrubbed and committed Yorkshire Choir with the Manchester Citadel Band belting out Onward Christian Soldiers. For those who don’t care for it, please disregard.