Without power for nearly a week after an ice storm wreaked havoc, one family vents its frustrations.
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After nearly a week without electricity at their Pointe-Claire home, the thing that bothers Michael Johnson the most is the complete lack of communication from Hydro-Québec.
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“We don’t have this kind of proactive, targeted, real-time communication,” Johnson said. “So what typically happens is exactly what’s happening now. You wind up learning things from the community. You don’t know how accurate it is. And then a narrative takes hold of the community. Everyone becomes convinced it’s this, that or the other. There’s no one on site. I work in communications, so that’s something I’m particularly sensitive toward. When I don’t see good communication, it bothers me. I think that that’s what’s bothered me the most about this. There’s no one on site to help navigate these last stragglers through these final days, which I think have been particularly taxing.”
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Johnson was still without power early Tuesday evening. It went out early Wednesday afternoon the week before. Twice the power came back briefly only to be followed by a loud bang and the loss of power again. The narrative the folks on his street, Coolbreeze Ave., have is that the bang was the transformer exploding.
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Later Tuesday evening, a Hydro-Québec spokesperson confirmed that workers had issues with the amount of power needed when they tried to reconnect the transformer in question. They decided the solution was to install a second transformer and work was expected to start Tuesday evening. The plan is for half of the about 20 houses still without power will be connected to the old transformer and half to the new one.
Johnson, his wife and their two boys aged 7 and 11 have been lucky. They’ve been able to stay with family. But it’s been a mighty stressful week for them. Without electricity, their sump pump is not working and there has been flooding in the basement. Johnson has spent hours hauling water out of the house.
What’s odd about the situation on their street is that it wasn’t particularly hard hit in terms of trees felled yet the power hasn’t come back.
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“I think there is some degree of truth to what everyone is saying in the community,” said Johnson. “There’s these transformers that were meant to be supplying power to up to 10 homes and instead are connected to 20 or 30 homes at a time. So when the power came back on, the amount of power needed (was too much) and so the transformer blew. So we’re back in the dark again, literally and figuratively because we don’t know why and we don’t know when it is coming back.”
Pointe-Claire Mayor Tim Thomas said Tuesday afternoon that there was only around 200 homes still without electricity, compared to roughly 90 per cent of the homes in Pointe-Claire that lost power after the ice storm hit.
“The guy on Coolbreeze is quite correct,” Thomas said. “(Transmission of information) is the key to it. That’s why I was all over CJAD for a few days. People want to turn on the radio and hear what’s going on.”
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Before the Hydro-Québec statement to the Gazette about adding a transformer, Johnson and his neighbours were still trying to figure out why they’re still in the dark.
“There are other streets that were horribly hit in terms of trees falling on houses, falling on cars, falling on power lines, and yet they’re all back up and running,” Johnson said. “It just compounds the mystery. Our street wasn’t hit that bad and we did get power in stops and starts over the last week. But it just couldn’t hold. Why is that? From a communications perspective, something is just not right and (Hydro-Québec) could be doing a lot better.”
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https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMifWh0dHBzOi8vbW9udHJlYWxnYXpldHRlLmNvbS9uZXdzL2xvY2FsLW5ld3MvcG9pbnRlLWNsYWlyZS1mYW1pbHktc3RpbGwtaW4tdGhlLWRhcmstbGl0ZXJhbGx5LWFuZC1maWd1cmF0aXZlbHktYWZ0ZXItaWNlLXN0b3Jt0gEA?oc=5
2023-04-11 22:19:43Z
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