We have been through blackouts so
many times during the eight years of Iran-Iraq war. There was nothing great or amusing
about it. It was considered "business as usual" most of the time. We
still had to do our homework under the candle lights, oil lamps, or gas lamps.
Exams were never cancelled because of blackouts. You would never know how often
it might happen during a month. We even had to save and store some water for
the times that water was shut off. Those years were dark and sad. People lost
their homes, their loved ones, their children in the war. Living a few hours per
week without running water or electricity wasn’t the biggest issue. We
got used to be prepared for it. That was my childhood. The war ended in
1988 and we never held any memorial anniversary for the blackouts of those
years.
But Toronto’s blackout ten years
ago (on August 14, 2003) was something else. I was fairly new to Canada,
working in my co-op position in east of Toronto. My husband was working in the
west side of the city, closer to our home. We shared a family car and one
family cellphone. After the power went off, everybody around me at work
was shocked as it was quite an unusual thing to happen, which was funny for me.
It was almost 4pm so eventually our managers decided to call it a day rather
than waiting for the power to be restored. I took a bus to go to the subway
station. It wasn’t that busy yet. But then along the way I realized that the
subway won't be working. The subway station was jam-packed with the crowd when
I got there, and there were not enough buses to take people out. I called Kambiz,
my husband, and he said he was on his way to pick me up. I took the first available
bus to the west. There wasn’t any other options. Traffic lights were off and
that made the whole traffic situation even worse. The streets were crowded with
shocked people. The bus was moving super slow. Eventually when we got to the
next station, I called Kambiz again from a payphone. He told me he ran out of
gas and guess what? All of the gas stations were shut down too. So he had
to park the car somewhere in the midtown. To make everything worse, the
cellphone ran out of battery, we lost our way of communication, so I had to
stay in that station waiting for him to arrive. He was in midtown, I was not
sure which bus would come the next, he was not sure which bus he will take …
So, I went to the closest Tim Horton's (our second home and native land) and
waited there.
He finally got there. Things were
still exciting. We took the next bus, and the next bus, and walked a for while
to escape the crowded buses and enjoy the nice evening weather … and then it
was about 11pm and I was extremely exhausted. I suggested that we should
take a cab. He said the streets were busy anyhow and we won't be able to move
any faster even with a cab. After I convinced him, we realized we didn’t have
enough cash to get a taxi, and all the bank machines were shut down too. Of
course we never had to carry cash before, but now the credit card machines were
not working.
We finally got home around 1:00am
and then, it was time to clime up the stairs… our rental apartment was on 21st
floor close to the beautiful High Park. To make it more fun, the only flash
light that we had was in the trunk of the car, now parked somewhere in midtown
close to Yonge and Eglinton. And so, we started climbing in the dark ... some
times we got lucky as a neighbour was passing by with his/her flash
light.
At home, most things in the
fridge had gone bad. No air conditioning, and even no stove to cook. That is
the disadvantage of living in a modern city: anything and everything works with
electricity. The next morning, all the big grocery stores were giving away
ice-cream, meat and their other preciable stuff. I guess most people were not
interested since they could not cook or store it either. We were stuck in 21st
floor with nothing but water. The blackout continued for 3 days. Luckily, some
northern part of the city got their power back after only a few hours and more lucky
for us, we had a good friend in that area and we moved to their place. As
always, good friends are priceless especially during an unexpected situation.
It has been 10 years now and we're still waiting for another blackout to be
able to return their favour :-)
The city of Toronto remained
calm, polite and upbeat as always. What I saw was that lots of people were
helping the police and each other, serving on behalf of the traffic lights.
There were other people who were distributing cold water bottles to those who
were helping the traffic at the intersections under the hot sun of mid August.
I cannot imagine what happened to those who had to pick up their little kids
from daycares, or those who were giving birth in hospitals and things like
that. But I never heard of a disasterous situation caused by the blackout.
Toronto could not really continue the business as usual, but I still could see
lots of smiles on the streets- which to me is the essence of the city of
Toronto. The spirit of the city remained untouched if not even bolder.
In the calm, peaceful Toronto,
the blackout of 2003 is a historic event now and I am part of it. As I am part
of the history of the war and many blackouts we experienced in Iran during the
bombarding attacks.
