Dependancy

This past weekend was a literal whirlwind.

Two tornadoes hit the Ottawa area on Friday. The immediate devastation in a couple of neighbourhoods in Ottawa-Gatineau and the small village of Dunrobin, was unreal. Particularly heartbreaking was the story of the father in Gatineau who just barely held onto his little girl from being sucked out of his arms.

In my neighbourhood I remember how unusually warm it was as I was walking home. It was windy, but not insanely windy. After I got home, there was a 30-minute period of intense rain while Margot, Glosette Girl and I were having dinner. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary until just after 6 pm we lost power.

Unbeknownst to me, one of the tornadoes had just hit a power station knocking out electricity to 200,000 people.

Clueless, we went for a walk in the warm evening air underneath an eerily calm sky. Stella Luna was still open so we enjoyed some cake there. They actually did an amazing job rolling with the punches. No power? No problem! Candles were on every table.

The harsh beauty of a post tornado sky

Same with a nearby yarn store where we enjoyed shopping by flashlight.

After our walk we went home and lit some of our own candles and had a little drawing party. It was actually kindof fun. So for us at least, the first night of the power failure was fun.

The second day...not so much. 

It was only in the morning, listening to our battery powered radio that we realized just how much damage had been done and how long it would take for the power to come back on. Afraid that the food in our fridge was going to go off, we moved most our perishables over to Glosette Girl's parents (they still had electricity).

It wasn't like the whole city was without power - the downtown core, the east end and most of Gatineau was unaffected. That allowed us to go on with our lives with only a few inconveniences. But we did make  changes. There was no Internet (except for limited cellphone service). No TV. We went to bed really early on Saturday. And I went to the store and bought a ton of candles...just in case.

Fortunately, by Sunday morning we were back in the "juice". Some people may still be without electricity though. You try going without electricity for four days - it gets old, trust me. We live in an interconnected electricity-dependent world. It's actually shocking how little it takes for the whole house of cards to start to fall apart.