Live from North York
Jan. 16th, 2009 08:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talktoolooseOur power went off at 10 pm on Thursday night along with most of the West end of Downtown Toronto. This morning, with the house descending towards freezing, I shut off the water, drained the pipes and headed for North York with the dog to be a refugee at my parent's house. I picked up Snake after work and we're staying here tonight.
According to City TV's website, 75% of the area has had power restored. I downloaded the handy pdf guide to see the area that didn't and might have it back by 10 tonight. Yup! Our little corner of the world is still dark, so we'll sleep here in the parental abode.
I fear for the houseplants that Snake has so lovingly cared for lo these many years.
I had a horrible night last night, as the house got colder. Not because I was cold myself, but because of a full-scale haunting by mostly nebulous fears. Sure, I was worried about pipes and the dog and the plants and other tangibles, but mostly I was made terribly aware of the fragility of our lives in cities. We depend on massive infrastructure that is maintained by an army of people. How easy it is for everything to turn upside down in a moment. How easy it is for us to let infrastructure slide as economies waver.
-17C. No furnace. "We are experiencing an unusually high call volume. Please try again later."
Haha.
According to City TV's website, 75% of the area has had power restored. I downloaded the handy pdf guide to see the area that didn't and might have it back by 10 tonight. Yup! Our little corner of the world is still dark, so we'll sleep here in the parental abode.
I fear for the houseplants that Snake has so lovingly cared for lo these many years.
I had a horrible night last night, as the house got colder. Not because I was cold myself, but because of a full-scale haunting by mostly nebulous fears. Sure, I was worried about pipes and the dog and the plants and other tangibles, but mostly I was made terribly aware of the fragility of our lives in cities. We depend on massive infrastructure that is maintained by an army of people. How easy it is for everything to turn upside down in a moment. How easy it is for us to let infrastructure slide as economies waver.
-17C. No furnace. "We are experiencing an unusually high call volume. Please try again later."
Haha.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-17 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-20 04:49 pm (UTC)Whether this was the fault of bad equipment or just one of those things remains to be seen. I'm sure the electrical grid in downtown Toronto is a huge, confusing beast that evolved over decades. It's doubtful that spending public money to completely revise it would be a good thing to do.
Unless you have a Jetsons city, all built at once by one planner, you will always have to deal with historical infrastructure.
Or maybe you're right. We conditionally bailed out our banks. They mostly did fine in the recent crisis, except for the fact that they had some investment in American mortgages.