Last week, Environment Canada (those guys that only have to be right 40% of the time, I’m told) issued a blizzard alert but I didn’t think it was bad. I had been here five days. Eventually, the sun came out, the howling winds were less so and we had four nice days. Late Tuesday night, it was supposed to come. You could hear the wind. Off and on, it roared during the night. Would we be snowed out at work?
By morning I was showered, lunch made and ready to leave for the health centre. I never made it. In that blowing snow, fresh and dry, dropped the day before…someone was out there. It just wasn’t me. Our lights flickered twice and the telephone rang once. No one was on the line. A few minutes later our rooms, still warm, were bathed in darkness.
I went to my laptop case and found my penlight flashlight, made my way across the dark room and looked out. The familiar neighbourhood of my past two weeks was gone. You could see nothing. Looking left I saw a glimmer of light in the old health centre which is literally a stone’s throw across the parking area. Emergency power, they had it, would we have lights soon?
The neighbour called on the phone. We had communications! Did we get the message the health centre is closed due to storm today? No, but we figured that might have been the ring on the phone about 20 minutes ago. The neighbour on the other side invited us over since she had candles lit and coffee made. We took our mugs and went through the connecting back door entrance and climbed the stairs. The penlight was no longer needed.
Awash in light and with a varying assortment of scenting, we sat down and talked. The lights flickered, tried to stay on again and then they did. We had power just as the dawn was breaking. The south-facing roof-top windows were able to deliver the available light of the day, but it wasn’t needed now. It might be later.
We adjusted the VCR/DVD combo unit, sorted our fine collection of three movies, put fresh coffee in the maker and waited out the storm. The radiophone crackled in the corner as we waited during each interchange…nurse on call to patient in need.
No work today, we might as well relax and enjoy our movie. The choices were: The Perfect Storm, 300 or the remake of the Shaggy Dog. Sometime later, I’ll let you know what we watched.
Friends by storm and oblivious to the outside weather, we nursed our coffees, watched our movie and prepared for the noon hour call to see our revised status.
Update:
The winds continued all day and night.
Thursday: the winds have increased to 60 to 80 kph and the phone just rang…no work today either. Update at noon…2 movies to go. At least I still have two packets of popcorn.
Further Update: It’s now Saturday. The health center has been closed except for emergencies since Tuesday. Even the RCMP were stuck yesterday for a while. The front end loader had cleared our parking lot (one sweep each time) once per day. The oil truck stopped by yesterday to top us up. The wind has not stopped howling. Sometimes, its slows a bit but then comes back with a vengance. This was supposed to stop Friday then today and it now appears that Monday may be sunny. Too late for my flights. I had written some bogs in advance but have not been able to upload them. Enjoy and we will keep you posted. The video below will give you a sample. IT WILL TAKE TIME TO LOAD
By morning I was showered, lunch made and ready to leave for the health centre. I never made it. In that blowing snow, fresh and dry, dropped the day before…someone was out there. It just wasn’t me. Our lights flickered twice and the telephone rang once. No one was on the line. A few minutes later our rooms, still warm, were bathed in darkness.
I went to my laptop case and found my penlight flashlight, made my way across the dark room and looked out. The familiar neighbourhood of my past two weeks was gone. You could see nothing. Looking left I saw a glimmer of light in the old health centre which is literally a stone’s throw across the parking area. Emergency power, they had it, would we have lights soon?
The neighbour called on the phone. We had communications! Did we get the message the health centre is closed due to storm today? No, but we figured that might have been the ring on the phone about 20 minutes ago. The neighbour on the other side invited us over since she had candles lit and coffee made. We took our mugs and went through the connecting back door entrance and climbed the stairs. The penlight was no longer needed.
Awash in light and with a varying assortment of scenting, we sat down and talked. The lights flickered, tried to stay on again and then they did. We had power just as the dawn was breaking. The south-facing roof-top windows were able to deliver the available light of the day, but it wasn’t needed now. It might be later.
We adjusted the VCR/DVD combo unit, sorted our fine collection of three movies, put fresh coffee in the maker and waited out the storm. The radiophone crackled in the corner as we waited during each interchange…nurse on call to patient in need.
No work today, we might as well relax and enjoy our movie. The choices were: The Perfect Storm, 300 or the remake of the Shaggy Dog. Sometime later, I’ll let you know what we watched.
Friends by storm and oblivious to the outside weather, we nursed our coffees, watched our movie and prepared for the noon hour call to see our revised status.
Update:
The winds continued all day and night.
Thursday: the winds have increased to 60 to 80 kph and the phone just rang…no work today either. Update at noon…2 movies to go. At least I still have two packets of popcorn.
Further Update: It’s now Saturday. The health center has been closed except for emergencies since Tuesday. Even the RCMP were stuck yesterday for a while. The front end loader had cleared our parking lot (one sweep each time) once per day. The oil truck stopped by yesterday to top us up. The wind has not stopped howling. Sometimes, its slows a bit but then comes back with a vengance. This was supposed to stop Friday then today and it now appears that Monday may be sunny. Too late for my flights. I had written some bogs in advance but have not been able to upload them. Enjoy and we will keep you posted. The video below will give you a sample. IT WILL TAKE TIME TO LOAD
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