Toronto – For a large percentage of Toronto’s Jewish community, the weather is cold and getting colder.
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And that is just inside their homes.
Much of Toronto was plunged into darkness Motzei Shabbos when a vicious ice storm turned the city into a beautiful but treacherous winter wonderland, as ice laden tree branches snapped, taking power lines down with them. As previously reported on VIN News, more than 400,000 customers in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick were left without power after freezing rain swept through the area, with Toronto Mayor Rob Ford calling it one of the worst storms to ever hit the city.
“It is cold and getting colder,” Mendy Friedman, executive director of Hatzoloh Toronto told VIN News. According to Accuweather.com, the high temperature today in Toronto will only reach 27 degrees, with an expected low tonight of six degrees and a real feel temperature of three below. Tomorrow’s high is not expected to exceed 14 degrees.
Efforts to restore power to the city’s residents continue to be hampered by the ice.
“The trees are loaded with ice and as branches come down, they are bringing down more power lines and causing more blackouts,” said Friedman, who reported that many side streets are completely closed and that there are downed wires and broken branches littering streets, particularly in the communities located in the southern side of the city.
Hatzoloh has been busy bringing dinners to many of the elderly who are homebound, transporting some to shelters and getting generators for those who can’t be moved.
“Originally they told us it might be two to three days until power is restored but now they are saying it might be another three or four days until the power is back,” said Friedman. “It doesn’t look too good for the next few days and there are no generators available anywhere.”
Friedman said that Hatzoloh is considering reaching out to neighboring areas in the hopes of acquiring more generators to get them through the next few days.
The Cheder of Toronto is one of the few schools that is open today, offering a warm haven for students, many of whom have no electricity at home.
“Most of our students are here,” said Perel Richter. “The main streets are okay and we are having a regular day today.”
One Toronto resident who braved the icy streets reported that there were some open stores in the area, although flashlights and batteries were nowhere to be found and that all transactions had to be made in cash.
“People are standing on line at gas stations but there is still gas,” reported the resident. “I saw them evacuating at old age home at 10 PM. It is so sad for the older people. For the rest of us, it is just cold.”
Toronto Hydro is currently reporting 219,000 customers without power, down from a high of 300,000 at the height of the storm and they urged their Twitter followers to stay at home due to the dangers posed by sagging power lines that have been affected by fallen tree limbs. According to Huffington Post reports, streetcar service has been restored and while subways are operational, stations in affected areas are currently being bypassed.
Toronto’s mayor was very upset with the ice storm. He was hoping for a lot of “snow”.
In the Summer of 2012, following a freak storm, called a Derecho, we were left without power for three days; the blackout started just before Shabbos, and continued to Monday. I was lucky, as some people didn’t have their power restored until much later. I had to throw out the entire contents of my freezer, and nearly all of the contents of the refrigerator. It was extremely hot at that time, with temperatures at night in the 90’s. I made up my mind at that time, that I would never again subject my family to that situation. Hence, several days after the blackout, I had a contractor install a standby 14 Kilowatt, natural gas generator. The next time the lights went out, we were the only house on the block with electricity! It was well worth the investment! I encourage everybody to consider purchasing a standby generator, as it costs only about one fifth of what a new car would cost.
If you are subject to power failure number 2 is the way to go. Even if you bought a 5 kilowatt generator and plug in 2 heaters and some lights. Enough to take the chill out
Just got my power back after 38 hours. My generator allowed me how water
heat, hot water and a single burner element.