Thursday afternoon, the weather is nice. I’m listening to the radio. What is that noise ? Looks like an old modem trying to connect to the internet. Or a lawn mower giving up the ghost. Or a hair dryer on fire. Or the intro of a group of death metal.
It’s an Environment Canada alert. I understand that she wants to attract attention, but her sound quality makes us want to run away, which would not be the right thing to do:
“Environment Canada has issued kisssh…kisssh tornado warning…following areas…”
Oh boy! A tornado !!! I’m all ears.
“Corn, Oulanges, Dreuil, Leyfield, Ahute, Harnois…”
Well then ! We lose one out of two syllables, it’s so greasy!
“Awdon, Ontario…”
Ontario! Montreal! It’s here, Montreal! A tornado warning in Montreal, in memory of Montrealers, is the first time. What are we doing ?
“Kisssshhhhhh! Put on immediately… koussshhh! In the shelter, if a meteooooooorological phenomenon led… kisssh is approaching. »
Thank you, Environment Canada, for thinking of us. This alert saves lives. But is it possible to improve the intelligibility of the subject? Looks like the person reading the message is caught in the tornado. Looks like the recording is from World War II.
We are in the age of artificial intelligence, there must be a way to better understand the very important warning. For the moment, it is more panicking than reassuring. That said, thanks again for letting me know.
Because right now, there’s no sign that it’s going to be a tornado. It’s even quite nice. And the weather forecast for some time has been, shall we say, random. If there was a Bet.99 of the weather bets, the experts would lose a lot of money. But an alert is an alert, we’re not fooling around with that, I put my doubts away and I close the windows.
Again the sound of a toaster exploding. Second alert. I listen. I grasp the three essential words: tornado, Montreal, shelter. Suddenly, the sky darkened. More than that, the sky darkens. Then the sky begins to fall. To scare the Gauls.
Third alert, fourth alert, fifth alert, there are more alerts playing on the radio this afternoon than Taylor Swift songs. The last is to warn us of a maritime tornado. What is a maritime tornado? On social networks, a person asks if it is a tornado which arrives an hour later. The message does not specify. Is it because so much water fell on the city that we are now part of the Maritimes?
The sun is back. The expected tornado did not come. She preferred to visit Ottawa and Mirabel. We had a narrow escape.
What a fun summer! Forest fires, smog, floods, landslides, tornadoes. Nature is unleashed because we have chained it. The summer of 2023 is, for the ordinary citizen that I am, the first summer when climate change becomes a reality. Before, it was not so obvious. There were heat waves, but there have always been heat waves.
This summer it’s weirder what’s happening. In a few weeks, we suffered more power outages than in the last ten years. It may not be related. But it creates a certain fragility. Never have our plans been so disrupted by the weather. We feel that something is going wrong. And these drawbacks are, in fact, a repetition. The repetition of the end of the world. We are far from it. It’s not even the beginning of the end. It is the beginning of the beginning.
Alerts from Environment Canada, we haven’t finished receiving them. Damaged electrical wires, we are only just beginning to repair them. Cities and villages affected, our politicians have not finished visiting. Let’s take advantage of the rehearsals, to organize ourselves better, to better protect ourselves. And take steps to avoid the worst.
Despite everything, summer remains the beautiful season.
It’s up to us not to make it ugly.