Forest Hill first to feel effects of ice storm
[attach]7378[/attach]The northern part of Forest Hill was among the first to go dark in the aftermath of the ice storm that walloped Toronto on Dec. 21, ultimately leaving some 300,000 people without power, some of them for more than a week.
Just hours into the storm, Toronto Hydro announced about 8,500 people were without power, among them those living along Eglinton Avenue West and up to Roselawn Avenue, stretching from Spadina Road westward to the Allen Expressway.
At the time, Toronto Hydro estimated power would be back on in 12–16 hours. But by 8 a.m. on Dec. 22, the number without power had reached 250,000, and estimates for restoration had hit 72 hours.
“I remember the night after the ice storm, my wife and I were in the car and we were driving around Forest Hill and we just found it so eerie to see the neighbourhood so dark,” said St. Paul’s Ward 22 councillor Josh Matlow, who was also without power until late Christmas Day.
Within days he was pushing for a special meeting by city council so it could approve a resolution within the required 14 working days to be eligible for the provincial disaster relief program. The idea got support from both Mayor Rob Ford and Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly, and the meeting has been scheduled for Jan. 10.
Provincial assistance would help cover what is expected to be tens of millions of dollars in cleanup costs, which might otherwise be downloaded onto the very residents who were affected.
One issue St. Paul’s Ward 21 councillor Joe Mihevc wants to see discussed at the meeting is provision for a third-party review of emergency services and a better communications strategy.
“I think Toronto Hydro should be integrated into 3-1-1,” he said, referring to the city’s information line. “It should be one number, not one for trees and one for wires.”
Mihevc also wants to explore requiring multi-unit residential buildings to have generators. It is unacceptable that a nine-storey building could go days without elevator service, particularly where there are people with mobility issues, he said.
The power was out in Mihevc’s home for nine days. It came back on New Year’s Eve, though most of his neighbours had power restored a week earlier.
The hardest-hit areas in his ward were Cedarvale and Humewood, in the Eglinton-Bathurst area.
Seeing the destruction of so many trees in his ward, Mihevc says he wants to see Toronto Hydro start burying power lines instead of keeping them up high where they interfere with trees. Over the lifetime of the wires, he speculates, the cost is the same.
Realizing “how unprepared we were as a city” should be taken as a lesson, he said.
“This could’ve gotten really nasty,” Mihevc said. “This could’ve been Lord of the Flies.”
Matlow said that hidden inside the wreckage of the storm are humanitarian stories, like that of Forest Hill Collegiate principal Peggy Aitchison who, once her power was restored, opened up a spare room in her house to a stranger.
It was an act liaised by Matlow through his website, which was frequently updating residents on the status of power restoration, as well as posting lists of who was offering space in their homes.
While memories of the storm will linger for some time, Matlow said positive stories like Aitchison’s should also be remembered.
“You see the extremes of human nature in these experiences, and one of the few wonderful outcomes of the ice storm was how community came together,” he said.