On July 8th, 2013, the city of Toronto got hit with its worst rainstorm in recorded history. Streets were flooded, cars were submerged, and hundreds of thousands of people were left without power for a long stretch of time. Some people (like yours truly) got left without power for a few days.
In case you’re wondering, yes, I’m fine, though not without a story to tell.
5pm rolls around and I’m on my way home from work with my coworker David. He notes that the sky is looking rather ominous, though I don’t think much of it. The weather in the city has been terrible of late with no shortage of rain in recent forecasts. Just before we enter the subway, the rain starts to trickle. At this point, I had no idea what was in store.
About an hour has passed, and it was still pouring. I ran outside for a second to see if the shuttle bus home had arrived, only to get completely drenched in the process. It wasn’t until Steff and I got on the bus that I realized how crazy this actually was. A few yards in front of us, the road was flooded to the point where it was impossible to drive through. Just in front of the bus ports was a stranded van, swimming in water that engulfed its tires and bumper.
We got home pretty quickly, but then had to deal with the power having just been shut down. While we still had running water, our food options were limited to a few granola bars. At the time, I thought this would sort itself out before the end of the night. For the time being, Steff and I played some Scrabble by candlelight, biding our time until this whole ordeal was over.
Though my battery on my phone was about to die, my mom had texted me, asking if I was alright. She saw some pictures on the internet of my area at its gnarliest, and hoped I wasn’t out there. After some quick Google searching, I figured out what she was talking about. The above image of the highway completely submerged in water quickly made its rounds and really hit home the fact that this was a storm unlike anything I’ve experienced before. I actually had plans of going onto that highway as soon as I got home, but they immediately got put on hold the moment I saw that picture.
Our building’s fire alarm went off shortly after we got in. The loud drone was immediately annoying from the get-go, but we were reluctant to leave unless there was an actual emergency. Instead, we kept playing Scrabble in hopes that it would go away shortly. 2 hours later, the alarm was still going, though I somehow managed to take a nap through it. Steff woke me up and asked if I wanted to get out of here to get away from that noise and to maybe find something to eat. Despite having seen the brutality of the storm in pictures a few hours earlier, I agreed. I was hungry and couldn’t stand that noise any further.
Did we find the food and safety we were looking for on the roads? Not by a long shot. We spent about an hour on the town, mostly crawling through traffic. All of the street lamps and traffic signs were off. Thankfully, we only ran into one major flooded road, which we were lucky enough to drive through without getting stuck. While Steff and I batted around the idea of skipping town in favour of her parent’s place, the poor road conditions and our lack of gas in the tank factored heavily in our decision to just go back home. Climbing the almost two-dozen flights of stairs to get to our place sucked, but it was a necessary evil at this point.
That morning, much of the city had already recovered. Power was on and business carried on as usual. Unfortunately for us, we lived in the area that got hit the hardest, and we were still without power. Though work may have accommodated for us to not come in, it probably was better that we did. At the very least, we’d have access to electricity. Work carried on like any other day, though Steff was quite the keener. She bought a bunch of food for us in the worst case scenario of having to go another night without power and she regularly checked our area’s power status. By mid-afternoon, it was announced that we wouldn’t be getting power until the following morning at the earliest.
The night that ensued was a lot calmer. It was a hot evening devoid of rain, and we weren’t waiting with bated breath for electricity. Instead, we had a calm night in, with Steff watching some of her favourite episodes of Dr. Who on her iPad, while I caught up on some Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon. We also had sandwiches for dinner. Mmm…sandwiches.
It’s been a messed up few days in the T-Dot, and there’s probably still a lot more work to be done to get everything back to normal. For now, here’s a few of my favourite pictures from #stormTO, though there are many more worth checking out.
In Third Person 