Just made the trip from our place up to the north end of Toronto to Richmond Hill and then down to the office. Power is sporadic throughout the city judging by the traffic lights, closed gas stations and lack of appreciable traffic on the roads. Those service stations that are open are swamped with people trying to fill up their tanks. The coffee shops are extremely busy as well with people in non-powered areas making the trek in search of hot coffee early this morning.
Overnight, the premier declared a state of emergency and this morning, non-essential workers are being urged to stay home and off the roads. For the most part, people are listening. Traffic is light everywhere in the city and Tucows HQ is virtually empty. There are only four people here right now. I wouldn't be here myself were it not for the fact that I had to drop Amanda off at the hospital. The entire trip took just under an hour. Travelling close to 100km in that period of time is unheard of at this time of day.
Even though Amanda works in a non-essential part of the hospital, it sounds like they were very pleased to see her. The temperature is expected to reach the mid to upper 30's today. With little or no power throughout the city, the hospitals are expecting to get swamped by the elderly, people on dialysis in addition to the regular ebb and flow of the sick and injured in a crisis situation. I sincerely hope that they have over-estimated the situation and things go smoothly for them today. I expect that Amanda will probably learn a lot of new things today helping out in areas that she normally wouldn't be involved in or exposed to.
According to the latest reports this morning, they don't expect to have power fully restored in the region for at least another 48 hours. Major internet exchange points like TorIX were reportedly off the air, not that it much mattered to most of us - we weren't able to use our computers to figure out what was and wasn't working anyways. The phone system worked throughout the evening and overnight just flawlessly. Cellular, less so due to the power requirements of the various transmitters and receivers. The Toronto Argonauts game was rescheduled for Sunday and the opening day of the CNE was delayed until tomorrow. I expect that most places will remain closed throughout today. Hopefully The Beer Store opens ;)
All in all, this seems to be turning out to be more of an inconvenience than a true crisis. This could change - there are already reports that it is taking longer than expected to restore the power grid due to unforeseen problems.
I'll post some more when I've got some more to post. But now, I'm going out for my morning ride.