Four days after Blackout 2003, things are getting back to normal in Toronto. The only things still not running are the subways and streetcars, but they are still threatening rolling blackouts as the grid is brought back to normal.
It really makes you realize how much we depend on electricity as a society. More to come…
Man this blackout really kicked our collective @$$es didn’t it? It could have been infinately worse though, can you imagine if it had happened during January or February rather than a warm August afternoon?
Do you remember the old Hydro Ontario commercials from the 80’s that talked about how we had an abundance of cheap, renewable energy in Hydro Electricty, and how we should move away from Natural Gas heating to Electricty?
Ooops.
Yes it could have been much worse. On November 9, 1965 a similar outage knocked 30 million people into the dark. That knockout caused a “mini baby-boom” nine-months later as couples had to stay close to keep warm.