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 Posté le: Mer Sep 25, 2013 10:55 am Sujet du message: The 2003 Blackout: Toronto remembers 10 years late |
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{The 2003 Blackout: Toronto remembers 10 years later}
Photos View gallery zoom Featured VideoClose More Video Memories of the northeast blackout 10 years later Summer school for at-risk youth Taste of the Danforth How residents of a rooming house cope with the extreme heat Ten years ago, a boy named “Light” was born in an oasis of electricity, surrounded by the blackness of a powerless city.It was during the great Blackout of 2003, a well-remembered episode in Toronto’s history that saw much of eastern North America plunge into darkness. The outage prompted emergency declarations, disrupted transit service for days and left millions with little to no electricity for up to 41 hours.At 4:11 p.m. Wednesday, it will be exactly one decade since the power went out for more than 50 million people — the largest blackout in North American history. MORE ON THESTAR.COMBlackout 2003: How Ontario went darkOntario’s energy mixDino Garagozzo will never forget it. Just hours after currents dropped,[url=http://woolrich-parkaoutlet.blogspot.com]woolrich arctic parka[/url], the Ajax man watched his wife,[url=http://woolrich-parkaoutlet.blogspot.com]woolrich arctic parka[/url], Lesley Larose, undergo an emergency C-section at Scarborough General Hospital, which was half-lit by backup generators. The couple named their son Luca, which translates to “light” from Italian, said Dino.“We named him before the blackout. We picked his name,” he explained, chuckling over the irony of it. “It’s almost like he was the bringer of light, because he was born and then the lights came on.” Power problems began the previous afternoon — Aug. 14, 2003 — with overloaded transmission lines in Ohio. That sparked a cascade of trouble that shut down electrical grids across Ontario, New York, New Jersey and beyond. The outage precipitated a widespread debate on energy conservation, with then-premier Ernie Eves calling on Ontarians to confront neighbours that were pumping air conditioning or leaving their lights on during eight days of restrictions that followed the blackout. Without power, residents of Toronto took to the streets to help direct traffic; florists arranged flowers for weddings by candlelight; and convenience stores served customers in the blackness. The night sky was a rarely seen canopy of dazzling stars, twinkling down on the darkened city through soft summer heat that lingered into the evening.Just east of Yonge and Eglinton, a now-defunct restaurant called Cilantro still had power because it was connected, as fate would have it, to a Bell building that had a generator. With its air conditioning and TVs, the cool eatery was soon a hot commodity in the suddenly powerless city. When the power went out, Joanne Sleightholm and her husband decided to go for a walk. They came across Cilantro and decided to stop and eat at the plugged-in restaurant. Before long, the place was packed, and the Sleightholms noticed the proprietors struggling to keep up.“They were understaffed, so we asked to help,” recalled Joanne. The restaurateur accepted the offer, and so the couple raced home to put on black pants and white shirts. They spent the next few hours in the bustling eatery, taking orders and serving dinner as volunteer waiters.Ten years — and three grandkids — later, it’s still a memory they cherish.“It was such a joy and a pleasure for us to do that. We had an absolute ball,” she said. “It made a very difficult situation in Toronto feel a little bit better.” Such an experience was far from universal, however, in the hours without electricity. Flights were grounded at Pearson airport and a Steely Dan show at the Molson Amphitheatre was postponed, while some unfortunate residents even saw their homes flood with raw sewage. Gary Hoffman lives just off Ashbridge’s Bay, where a sewage treatment plant lost power and caused a backup of incoming waste. He was at home with his brother during the blackout when they discovered a rising tide filling their Minto St. basement.“They had no power over there, and everything came back to us,” said Hoffman, 67, adding that many of his neighbours had the same smelly problem during the blackout. “There were four or five of us who got flooded out. It was real chaos.”The blackout wasn’t without tragedy, either. Three people died during the outage in Ontario, including Lewis Wheelan, a 22-year-old man who was found dead in his North York apartment after nearly 24 hours without power.Having lost his legs and an arm after he was electrocuted doing power line repairs two years earlier, Wheelan needed constant cool air on his grafted skin to keep his body from overheating. Believing his death was a result of him being left alone during the blackout, his family in Sault Ste. Marie have advocated for a “vulnerable persons registry” (VPR) to keep track of people like Wheelan so they can get help when the power goes out. In 2011, the VPR went live in Sault Ste. Marie, allowing the local power utility to contact the Red Cross during blackouts so people who need electrical power to survive can get help, explained VPR co-ordinator Naomi Thibault. On Thursday, Wheelan’s family will mark the blackout anniversary — and 10th year since the loss of their son — with a barbecue to support the VPR. Meanwhile, out in Ajax, Luca Garagozzo will turn 10. He’s been spending his summer playing soccer and learning karate. His dad said they still talk from time to time about the blackout and how Luca was born, but they don’t put too much stock in it. “He’s said things like, ‘I’m a famous baby,’ and I say, ‘Yeah Luca, you were famous for one day,’” Dino said, laughing.Where were you?[View the story "#Blackout2003: Where were you?" on Storify]
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