With still no power and no heat at home, we’re holed up at Kennedy Bowl. It’s not exactly warm here, but it’s warmer than at home.
To recap what happened so far …
Toronto suffered an ice storm and on Saturday at midnight, we along with about 500,000 other homes lost power. Meaning no electricity, no water and no heat.
On Monday the water came back. On Tuesday the electricity came back, but no heat.
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday we locked ourselves and 5 cats in a small room. While a portable heater was useless to heat up an entire living room, it did a good job in a small room.
Friday night we lost power again.
Cold, hungry and desperate for hot coffee, we headed to the mall on Saturday morning, to the bowling alley in the afternoon, and back to the mall in the evening where we went to the cinema.
When we came home, the lights were on in the corridors of our condo building and the electrical outlets worked. So we brought the percolator out for coffee, read for a while and played cards.
It was cold though. We’ve been fighting the cold for eight days. We’ve been fighting it in the mall, in the cinema, in the bowling alley and at home. The mall and cinema were sort of heated, but were not exactly cozy. The bowling alley has no heating and relies on heat from the stores upstairs and body heat. As for home … yes, the little heater made the room nice and warm, but we can’t leave that heater on all the time. Using 1.000 Watts it is an expensive gadget.
At our condo building, tempers are flaring. People are upset (to put it mildly) with the management company, the board of directors and the superintendent. Those who don’t get mad get teary as the cold and the misery of it all gets to them.
Others still have left their homes to be with family or friends, or have checked into a hotel. Some because they feel sick, others because they have small children who are not coping with these extreme conditions.
Eight days of freezing cold and counting. When will it end? Will 2013 have a happy ending?