[Perry] And Suddenly – Flood

Monday night was an interesting night in the city of Toronto.

A huge burst of rain in a two hour period led to intense, INTENSE amounts of flooding in the downtown core as well as a lot of highways that ran across or alongside various rivers.

Maybe you don’t believe me?

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words.

Here, have FIVE THOUSAND words!

A street running under a bridge downtown:

Cars brought to a halt on the highway when the water overtakes a lot point:

More shots of the Don Valley Parkway that runs by the Don River:

Just….what in the hells?

And entrance to our subway systems downtown:

There are things to take away from this, preparations to make.

Early preparation is key!

When the power went out in my neighborhood, I was scrambling for candles and a working lighter.

This is my fault, more than anything else. The problem is that blackouts and whatnot tend to be so infrequent that I keep forgetting to keep emergency lights and supplies up to date.

Be prepared!

Make sure that candles and working lighters are in easy to reach and easy to find positions. Make sure that you also have a working flashlight with an extra set of batteries (just in case).

Make sure that you have some nonperishable snacks or food around the house. I’m not really advocating that you stock up enough to keep yourself flush in the event of an apocalypse…but I don’t think it’s too crazy to expect that there be an extra day’s worth of food in the house, just on the off chance that something crazy happens and you really don’t want to turn to cannibalism as option #1…

Portable Electronics!

This was actually a problem I ran into on Monday.

I was so used to having ready access to power that I’d fallen out of the habit of keeping my devices charged.

This is not so tragic in the case of the laptop or ereader (or IS IT?!).

In the case of the phone though? It’s actually pretty damned important, especially if you’re trying to communicate with your sister who’s arriving from a vacation and is all delayed and switching planes and whatnot.

Plus, there’s the benefit of being able to write or read even if the power’s out so long as you remember to keep things charged…

City Knowledge

This one might be a little more esoteric…but you should have at least a general idea of where the high and low ground areas of your city lies.

I’m not saying that you need to have a terrain map of your city in your head at all times, but a general idea of which areas are higher or lower can be very useful.

I saw a lot of accounts on the news of people who hit traffic problems due to the flooding…and ended up detouring into WORSE traffic and worse flooding problems because they moved into valleyed areas by rivers.

So In Conclusion

Be prepared!

Are your teeth and ambitions prepared?

Be prepared!

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