Ice Storm report

[Michel Lachance]

I know this topic is off-subject but the situation is so exceptionnal 
up-here I thought it would be interesting for you to know.  I don't know 
how the news in American networks have reported the situation in eastern 
Canada but, here it is:

The ice storm stroke really hard in Québec, specially in the south area 
of Montréal.  After 5 full days of icing rain, entire forests are 
devastated and in certain area, most of the electric poles are broken.  
Near a thousand of 730,000 volts towers are down and several hundred 
miles of electric lines have to be reconstructed from nothing.

Last Thursday, about 1 milion and a half customers (houses) were 
deprived of electric power, which affected about 1 third of the 
population of the entire province.  At this moment, there are still more 
than 400,000 customers who have no lights, 9 days after the beginning of 
the power loss.  For near than 100,000 of them, it will need between 3 
and 4 weeks before they have it back.

Most of the generators are designed to be used only in an emergency and 
are not suited for continuous use so, many of them are starting to fail 
with no replacement parts available.  Hitherto, many farmers have to 
face a very critical situation.

In an area of about 1500 square miles, it is merely impossible to find a 
single battery, candle or heating fuel in any kind of store.  And don't 
even think about buying an electric generator.  We have seen people who 
sold second hand devices third times the price of a brand new one.  Many 
of the houses which happens to have a wood stove also have to face 
firewood shortage.

Fortunately, public security and, most of all, generosity from the part 
of more fortunate people is getting very well organised.  Public 
shelters against the cold and free distribution points of basic goods 
are set up very efficiently.

Had never thought I would ever see something like that in my own 
backyard.

Personnally, I had two days without electricity but I was well equiped: 
Wood stove, camping stove, candles and, most important, an inverter that 
allows me to recharge my computer directly from the car!

Regards,

Michel Lachance, RPT

Avery Todd wrote:
> 
> List,
> 
>    I was just listening to a newscast about the ice storm, etc. in the
> Northeast and was just wondering if any of our list members are caught in
> that. If so, we probably won't be hearing from them for a little while.
> Just curious.
> 
> Avery