VinceChan.net

Once in a while, nature decides to humble humanity and the results are both spectacular and devastating. Where’s Noah’s ark when you need one? On Friday, August 19 2005, one huge storm blew over the Greater Toronto Area, leaving many without power, cars submerged in flooded streets and generally causing huge inconvienence to everyone who the unfortunate luck to live in the worst hit parts of town. A tornado even touched down near Fergus, Geulpeh (thankfully no where close to us).

To put it into perspective, the wind speeds of the tornada were 240km/h. The rain fell so hard, that you can see the results was a flash flood. River banks were overflowing, low lying areas were collecting all the water, and travel slowed to a crawl. Toronto police had to use jetskis to rescue some of the stranded drivers!

The flood also affected my area of residence, but I do count myself very lucky indeed. The basement of my house was flooded, but nothing muc was really damaged by the thin layer of water. Things really stink now as the carpets are soaked, and it’ll be a lot of time before it truly dries up.

To compound the problem, the power box outside of my house for the wholestreet was half submerged in water, causing elecrical problems and blackout for the entire street. We had water, but could not dry it for lack of no power. And I had no way until 24 hours later when Torono Hydro was finally able to come fix it. I wouldn’t blame them because there were so many little blackout areas throughout the city.

All’s well that ends well. I am thankful that nothing of importance was damaged, but still this is way I’d rather have snow than rain!