Juan
I don't know how much coverage this got, but hurricane Juan pretty much knocked out Halifax and tore a path through the middle of the province on Sunday night. It's normal for Nova Scotia to get the remnants of hurricanes, but storms like Juan rarely come this way. I know this is nothing special for people who probably have to deal with worse yearly, but the last storm of this calibre to hit Nova Scotia was in 1954 or so.
I don't know what time it was, but when the storm actually hit where I live (half an hour's drive outside of Halifax), I was sleeping in the basement and the wind sounded as though it was inside the house. Every few minutes, I would hear something hit the windows upstairs, or a crashing noise from things getting knocked over. The strongest gusts forced open the vent for the range hood, producing a low, loud whistling sound. I had no idea what was going to happen. When the winds died down a bit, I went upstairs to try and look out the window, but it was impossible to see anything.
Next morning, I woke up to an interesting sight. The windows were sprayed with leaf fragments, the yard was filled with leaves and branches, and about six trees out front were at an angle. Thankfully our house was undamaged. Virtually everyone in the neighbourhood was out walking the streets, looking at other people's yards.
The next day's paper gave me an idea of the scope of the damage. About 300,000 people were without power, and Halifax was an absolute mess, with trees littering the streets, windows blown out, cars crushed, and houses ripped by trees. Two people had been killed by falling trees.
On Wednesday, I got a call from a friend who works at a Halifax TV station. He was stranded in the city Sunday night after work, and was initially refused a room at Bayview Motel because their credit card machine was out. He managed to get a room after he called 911 and couldn't get through. The next day, after an ordeal checking out (the power was out, so they couldn't see if my friend had used any in-room extras), he overheard a father trying to get some shelter for himself and his children after the roof of their house was damaged. The father was refused a room because a sighseeing tour from Cape Breton had reserved rooms and hadn't cancelled yet. It's worth noting that this was mostly an anomaly. Several businesses and organisations also opened to provide food and drinking water to their communities. Friends and neighbours, as always, were willing to help.
My friend and I went into Halifax. Signs were wrecked. Motel Esquire's sign was laying in a crumpled heap, with a semicircular piece of the sign which read "come", in a parking lot on the other side of the road. All immediately important damage had already been cleared, but road medians were piled up with branches and limbs. Large trees rested on people's houses or sprawled across their lawns. Splintered sections of utility poles were suspended by wires in front of people's homes. My friends and I went to see some more disastrous scenes, in the form of a movie called Cabin Fever.
Reading today's paper, I found out that Point Pleasant Park had been absolutely ravaged by the hurricane. It will take generations to gain some of its former splendour.
The power came on this evening, after I had come home from my bath in the lake and finished my barbecued roast beef. I was laying in bed, thinking, where the hell is that light coming from?
It's a good thing that most were spared from immediate harm in this storm. Many still have to contend with the effects of days of power outages. We're fine, but poor families will be hit hard with the loss of food going into the winter.
Here are some pictures capturing some of the damage: http://www.herald.ns.ca/juandownload/juanphotos.html
I took a few pictures, but they weren't on my camera and they need to be developed.
Anyway, this is kind of long winded and I apologise if there are already threads for this.
I don't know what time it was, but when the storm actually hit where I live (half an hour's drive outside of Halifax), I was sleeping in the basement and the wind sounded as though it was inside the house. Every few minutes, I would hear something hit the windows upstairs, or a crashing noise from things getting knocked over. The strongest gusts forced open the vent for the range hood, producing a low, loud whistling sound. I had no idea what was going to happen. When the winds died down a bit, I went upstairs to try and look out the window, but it was impossible to see anything.
Next morning, I woke up to an interesting sight. The windows were sprayed with leaf fragments, the yard was filled with leaves and branches, and about six trees out front were at an angle. Thankfully our house was undamaged. Virtually everyone in the neighbourhood was out walking the streets, looking at other people's yards.
The next day's paper gave me an idea of the scope of the damage. About 300,000 people were without power, and Halifax was an absolute mess, with trees littering the streets, windows blown out, cars crushed, and houses ripped by trees. Two people had been killed by falling trees.
On Wednesday, I got a call from a friend who works at a Halifax TV station. He was stranded in the city Sunday night after work, and was initially refused a room at Bayview Motel because their credit card machine was out. He managed to get a room after he called 911 and couldn't get through. The next day, after an ordeal checking out (the power was out, so they couldn't see if my friend had used any in-room extras), he overheard a father trying to get some shelter for himself and his children after the roof of their house was damaged. The father was refused a room because a sighseeing tour from Cape Breton had reserved rooms and hadn't cancelled yet. It's worth noting that this was mostly an anomaly. Several businesses and organisations also opened to provide food and drinking water to their communities. Friends and neighbours, as always, were willing to help.
My friend and I went into Halifax. Signs were wrecked. Motel Esquire's sign was laying in a crumpled heap, with a semicircular piece of the sign which read "come", in a parking lot on the other side of the road. All immediately important damage had already been cleared, but road medians were piled up with branches and limbs. Large trees rested on people's houses or sprawled across their lawns. Splintered sections of utility poles were suspended by wires in front of people's homes. My friends and I went to see some more disastrous scenes, in the form of a movie called Cabin Fever.
Reading today's paper, I found out that Point Pleasant Park had been absolutely ravaged by the hurricane. It will take generations to gain some of its former splendour.
The power came on this evening, after I had come home from my bath in the lake and finished my barbecued roast beef. I was laying in bed, thinking, where the hell is that light coming from?
It's a good thing that most were spared from immediate harm in this storm. Many still have to contend with the effects of days of power outages. We're fine, but poor families will be hit hard with the loss of food going into the winter.
Here are some pictures capturing some of the damage: http://www.herald.ns.ca/juandownload/juanphotos.html
I took a few pictures, but they weren't on my camera and they need to be developed.
Anyway, this is kind of long winded and I apologise if there are already threads for this.
Comments
I love Halifax. I hope everything is OK. That town has a difficult history.
Actually, this has been on my mind for the last week because very close frieds of ours live right on the South Shore coast just 15 km west of Halifax. We have been trying to get through to them for a week, but the phone lines are still not working. Finally, my parents - who live near Annapolis Royal (which was untouched by the hurricane) - heard from our friends last night via cell phone. They still do not have electricty or regular phone service, but are otherwise ok. Their house escaped any major damage, just shingles missing from the roof. They said the night of the hurricane was an incredibly scary experience though.
Actually, this has been on my mind for the last week because very close friends of ours live right on the South Shore coast just 15 km west of Halifax.
Yes, that would have been a scary place to be. Of course, since a large portion of the province's population has never experienced anything like this, many had no idea what was going to happen.
A number of people in Halifax get their phone service from EastLink, the cable company. Cable isn't as resilient as regular telephone infrastructure, and as a result, many EastLink customers have had long waits to get their phone service back. A friend of mine in Halifax got phone service Wednesday afternoon. Of course, some lines were just down, so what can you do?
Cell phone service has been difficult too, since a number of towers were either out of service or saturated with calls. From what I've heard, Rogers customers have had more trouble connecting than Aliant/Telus customers. Although this wouldn't surprise me, I don't have any real confirmation.