by long weekend storm
The Remembrance Day long weekend in British Columbia turned into an unforgettable one, weather-wise. A large area of the province from the coast to the interior was hit by a powerful storm, from Sunday evening until Monday afternoon. Falling trees damaged many homes and vast areas of power lines. At its peak, 196,000 homes were without power. Ferries were not running for many hours on Monday, causing backlogs for travellers trying to return home.
In our neighbourhood, we were lightly touched this time, losing power for only about 6 hours during the day yesterday. Our home remained a reasonably comfortable 18C, with 10C outside. Power was restored at dusk, just before we were going to light candles and start a fire in the fireplace to warm up the chili and make tea. Our phone line was unaffected, though we had to dig up the old rotary dial phone to call our daughters to check on how they were faring. Elisa’s family in Vancouver and Erika and partner in Surrey were unaffected. Anita and her partner, east of Kamloops, however have been without power since Monday morning and would not have it restored until today, hopefully. They’ve had a cold night at just above freezing, and without a working fireplace. I was very surprised that the storm reached that far northeast.
Some reports say this storm was as bad as last year’s big one on December 14th. The number of homes without power was almost as high this year, but I don’t think we’ve had the devastating losses in our parks this time around. I took the above photo a few days ago in a part of Cates Park which lost a huge number of trees last year.
Everyone is wondering if this year will be another year of numerous big storms, like the past year. In the 35 years we’ve lived here, it’s never been so stormy so often. Interesting times.
November 13, 2007 in Canada and BC, Current Events, Home by Marja-Leena
Scary times, Marja-Leena, with storms in Canada, wild fires in California, floods from the Northern Sea with dykes breaking in the Netherlands – it seems to me as if nature was retaliating because human beings have mistreated it for so long. Now we pay the price.
I am glad that your home is safe and hope that Anita (one of your daughters?) will have electricity again soon.
http://olivia-kroth.blog.de.vu
Glad to hear that you and yours didn’t suffer any damage, though being without power can be a real trial!!
Olivia, thanks for the kind words. Yes, there are much more frequent and fiercer storms in so many places in the world.
Joan, thanks. We were the lucky ones. We take electricity for granted, don’t we?!
I’m sorry about these damaging storms, Marja-Leena. In the northeast we’ve had worse storms in the past few years than ever in my life; I think it is something we’re going to have to get used to and prepare for, unfortunately.
Beth, I think you are right and I do think it’s at least partly due to how much we’ve abused this earth.
Geez, you’ve had a lot of lousy weather this year. Glad to hear that you didn’t have any serious damage there and your power outage wasn’t too long.
Yeah, Leslee, it’s been a strange year. I think I missed my computer and the internet the most when the power was down, heh.
I don’t recognize Cates from that photo 🙁
Hopefully this is the last for this season!
Hi Erika, this is at the western end of the park. You can look down on it from the street.