UPDATE: Councillor Gord Perks has arranged a public meeting to discuss the blackout on Thursday, January 22 at 7:00 at the Parkdale Public Library at Queen and Cowan. Representatives from Toronto Hydro and Hydro One will be present.
The residents associations of Ward 14 will also be holding a meeting about the blackout this Sunday, January 25th from 11:30 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. at the Revue Cinema.
Most of our neighbourhood suffered through nearly 24 hours with no power or heat, beginning on Thursday night at 10:00 p.m. Needless to say this disrupted life and business throughout Roncesvalles Village, though many handled it with good humour. A Good Read’s sandwich board today read: “Books. No electricity required.”
Power was restored on Roncesvalles north of Howard Park Avenue early on Friday. Sue’s Thai Food and Loon’s Pub certainly did a brisk business feeding and warming neighbourhood residents. High Park Baptist Church opened its doors to the neighbourhood, providing a place for people to warm up.
We are grateful for the hard work of Toronto Hydro workers getting the power back on, certainly, but we are frustrated that Roncesvalles Village once again seemed to be the last part of the city to have its power restored, as it was in the big blackout of 2003. The RVBIA will be investigating this to see if there are any possibilities of improving this situation.
Businesses that suffered damage or loss of stock as a result of the blackout are encouraged to contact their insurance agents. From the Insurance Bureau of Canada website:
“But the first priority should be to make sure that you and your family are safe, and to take precautions to keep your property safe,” said Don Forgeron, Vice-President, Ontario, IBC. “It’s important that homeowners understand what they need to do to protect their property. If damage does occur, they should find out what their insurance policy will cover.”
One Comment on “Blackout!”
We regret that the Roncesvalles area was among the last areas to have power restored. Unfortunately, the flooding at Dufferin Station drenched the transformers that happen to feed this neighbourhood, and others further east. There are a number of transformer banks in the station, and we were able to bring the dryest ones back on line first. This also provided power inside Dufferin Station, which made the restoration there easier to manage. The transformer bank serving the Roncesvalles area sustained the most serious damage as a result of the flood and we couldn’t safely re-energize until we dried it out, which was very difficult to do, considering the amount of water that entered the station. We understand the difficult situation that you were in, and we apologize. Please be assured that this outage will be thoroughly investigated.
Blair Peberdy
Vice President
Toronto Hydro Corporation