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Rain in January
It's raining outside my apartment window right now. Rain in January never really bothered me. It's inconvenient, because there's slush and muck, and sometimes a thin veneer of ice will form, making walking difficult and causing drivers the added inconvenience of having to chip their car doors open. The trees look like they've been coated with glass, and when the sun shines, the whole world glitters.
Ten years ago, I was a 22-year-old journalism student at Concordia University. I was still on my winter break, enjoying the last few days of freedom before the crunch of the final semester of my final year began. I was still living at home on the West Island (way in the suburbs), and working at a book store. When the Ice Storm hit, my part of Montreal lost power, but the store didn't. I remember taking refuge there, because it was the only thing that seemed even a little normal.
Our street lost power a few days after the storm came, so by the time our electricity went out, there were nine adults, six children, three dogs and two cats living in my house. We had invited some of our friends to stay with us when the lights were still on. They stayed after the lights went out, because we still had some heat. I ended up sharing my bedroom with three little girls. They took my bed, and I slept on a foam mattress on the floor. I tried to make it seem like a sleepover party, because the middle girl was really afraid of the dark. We played games, and told stories, and I set my travel alarm clock to wake me up in time to go to work the next day. I could hear cracking noises outside: branches from trees on the street were breaking off, because they were too heavy. When I woke up, I stumbled to the bathroom in the dark, lit a candle, and heated up a fondue pot of water to wash my hair. I had tried to wash with water straight from the tap the day before, and the water had been so cold it hurt my head.
The coffee shop in the bookstore was giving away free hot chocolate or coffee to anyone off the street, and employees and their families were welcome to sleep at the store. People were coming in just for somewhere to go, because they couldn't stay home any more. I remember thinking how shell-shocked everyone looked. They gazed around in awe (and sometimes jealousy) at our electric lights, marveling at how weirdly selective the storm had been in knocking down power lines.
The day after her power went out, my friend and I went back to her apartment building to retrieve her cat. She had left him there, thinking she was only spending one night at our place. When it became clear that the power wasn't coming back on anytime soon, we decided to brave the unpredictable streets and go get him. We had to find a hardware store that was still open, because we needed a pet carrier, batteries, and other supplies. The only place open was Canadian Tire, and it was a mob scene. People were buying anything they could, batteries, firewood, propane. It took us an hour to get the carrier and get out.
The inside of her building was pitch black. The batteries in the emergency lights had run out, and it was so dark you could almost feel it. We had one little candle that she had had in her car, and we walked down the hallway slowly, so it wouldn't go out. We had to find her apartment by feel, counting off the doors in the hallway until we got to the fourth door on the left. Inside the apartment, it was freezing. The water in the toilet had ice on it. The cat had made a nest in the back of the closet, on a pile of sweaters. My friend felt horribly guilty for leaving him there overnight, but we all thought the power would come back.
Driving around the West Island of Montreal was so surreal. There were no buses, few cars and certainly no people. The roads were still treacherous, and there were no streetlights. It was like a scene out of The Stand by Stephen King, if The Stand had been set in the winter. On one trip out to find firewood for some neighbours, my friend and I found a restaurant that was open. They were running on generators to keep their food from spoiling, and they had gas stoves. They were only serving pea soup and tea, but my friend and I had been living on Kentucky Fried Chicken and hot dogs from La Belle Province for a week. We tipped them five bucks each, just for being open.
The image of hydroelectric towers crumpled over like tin foil from the weight of the ice is the main thing that has stuck with me. My family didn't live in the Dark Triangle, where the power stayed off for weeks. We were very lucky. My street was only out for something like 10 days, off and on. We were in an area that had "rolling power". We kept hearing news reports of people dying from carbon monoxide poisoning because of backed up fireplaces, or faulty generators. Some people were using propane barbecues or Coleman stoves indoors to be able to cook food and keep warm, but were overcome by fumes. I knew lots of people who stayed in emergency shelters set up in school gyms, and I heard how some neighbourhoods that had been evacuated were being looted. The Island of Montreal had been almost completely cut off from the South Shore, because bridges and tunnels were closed due to fears that the weight of the ice would cause them to collapse. Sheets of ice were falling off the sides of buildings downtown, and at least one person was killed by it. Mount Royal lost thousands of trees, and about a hundred thousand more were damaged.
A weird thing I remember: Standing in the doorway of the bookstore with some co-workers, watching as electrical transformers exploded in showers of blue sparks, one by one, all down the street.
Another thing I remember is this: piles of tree branches lining the roads in my neighbourhood. So many trees were destroyed, and maintenance crews couldn't remove them all. The branches were still there in the spring, and I remember staring in fascination at the green buds sprouting on the hundreds of fallen branches along the curb.
Even now, ten years later, Montrealers (and ex-Montrealers, like me) still swap stories about the Ice Storm. We're proud to have survived it, and we love to laugh about how it was the prettiest natural disaster ever. But rain in January still scares us, and reminds us that it could happen again.
Ten years ago, I was a 22-year-old journalism student at Concordia University. I was still on my winter break, enjoying the last few days of freedom before the crunch of the final semester of my final year began. I was still living at home on the West Island (way in the suburbs), and working at a book store. When the Ice Storm hit, my part of Montreal lost power, but the store didn't. I remember taking refuge there, because it was the only thing that seemed even a little normal.
Our street lost power a few days after the storm came, so by the time our electricity went out, there were nine adults, six children, three dogs and two cats living in my house. We had invited some of our friends to stay with us when the lights were still on. They stayed after the lights went out, because we still had some heat. I ended up sharing my bedroom with three little girls. They took my bed, and I slept on a foam mattress on the floor. I tried to make it seem like a sleepover party, because the middle girl was really afraid of the dark. We played games, and told stories, and I set my travel alarm clock to wake me up in time to go to work the next day. I could hear cracking noises outside: branches from trees on the street were breaking off, because they were too heavy. When I woke up, I stumbled to the bathroom in the dark, lit a candle, and heated up a fondue pot of water to wash my hair. I had tried to wash with water straight from the tap the day before, and the water had been so cold it hurt my head.
The coffee shop in the bookstore was giving away free hot chocolate or coffee to anyone off the street, and employees and their families were welcome to sleep at the store. People were coming in just for somewhere to go, because they couldn't stay home any more. I remember thinking how shell-shocked everyone looked. They gazed around in awe (and sometimes jealousy) at our electric lights, marveling at how weirdly selective the storm had been in knocking down power lines.
The day after her power went out, my friend and I went back to her apartment building to retrieve her cat. She had left him there, thinking she was only spending one night at our place. When it became clear that the power wasn't coming back on anytime soon, we decided to brave the unpredictable streets and go get him. We had to find a hardware store that was still open, because we needed a pet carrier, batteries, and other supplies. The only place open was Canadian Tire, and it was a mob scene. People were buying anything they could, batteries, firewood, propane. It took us an hour to get the carrier and get out.
The inside of her building was pitch black. The batteries in the emergency lights had run out, and it was so dark you could almost feel it. We had one little candle that she had had in her car, and we walked down the hallway slowly, so it wouldn't go out. We had to find her apartment by feel, counting off the doors in the hallway until we got to the fourth door on the left. Inside the apartment, it was freezing. The water in the toilet had ice on it. The cat had made a nest in the back of the closet, on a pile of sweaters. My friend felt horribly guilty for leaving him there overnight, but we all thought the power would come back.
Driving around the West Island of Montreal was so surreal. There were no buses, few cars and certainly no people. The roads were still treacherous, and there were no streetlights. It was like a scene out of The Stand by Stephen King, if The Stand had been set in the winter. On one trip out to find firewood for some neighbours, my friend and I found a restaurant that was open. They were running on generators to keep their food from spoiling, and they had gas stoves. They were only serving pea soup and tea, but my friend and I had been living on Kentucky Fried Chicken and hot dogs from La Belle Province for a week. We tipped them five bucks each, just for being open.
The image of hydroelectric towers crumpled over like tin foil from the weight of the ice is the main thing that has stuck with me. My family didn't live in the Dark Triangle, where the power stayed off for weeks. We were very lucky. My street was only out for something like 10 days, off and on. We were in an area that had "rolling power". We kept hearing news reports of people dying from carbon monoxide poisoning because of backed up fireplaces, or faulty generators. Some people were using propane barbecues or Coleman stoves indoors to be able to cook food and keep warm, but were overcome by fumes. I knew lots of people who stayed in emergency shelters set up in school gyms, and I heard how some neighbourhoods that had been evacuated were being looted. The Island of Montreal had been almost completely cut off from the South Shore, because bridges and tunnels were closed due to fears that the weight of the ice would cause them to collapse. Sheets of ice were falling off the sides of buildings downtown, and at least one person was killed by it. Mount Royal lost thousands of trees, and about a hundred thousand more were damaged.
A weird thing I remember: Standing in the doorway of the bookstore with some co-workers, watching as electrical transformers exploded in showers of blue sparks, one by one, all down the street.
Another thing I remember is this: piles of tree branches lining the roads in my neighbourhood. So many trees were destroyed, and maintenance crews couldn't remove them all. The branches were still there in the spring, and I remember staring in fascination at the green buds sprouting on the hundreds of fallen branches along the curb.
Even now, ten years later, Montrealers (and ex-Montrealers, like me) still swap stories about the Ice Storm. We're proud to have survived it, and we love to laugh about how it was the prettiest natural disaster ever. But rain in January still scares us, and reminds us that it could happen again.
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