Massive failures | Of love and hot water

Warmth and good people around you: that’s what you can’t do without in life, after all.

Hydro-Quebec customers and their families who were still without power on Monday – there were still nearly 15,000 in this situation at the end of the evening – would have done well without this reminder of their basic needs. Some of them were nevertheless full of gratitude.

Monday afternoon, at the private residence Les Jardins Beaurepaire, in Beaconsfield – an affluent suburb located in the west of the island of Montreal –, the elderly tenants of the place were of course very anxious for the electricity to return, but they congratulated themselves on being so well surrounded.

Everyone had nothing but good words for Fiona Griffiths. A retired nurse and experienced camper, M^me Griffiths had all the gear in her house to survive a long, long blackout and to bring it to all those neighbors. A little cappuccino, anyone?

“Always be ready for any eventuality, that’s the motto of the good camper!” », to launch M^me Griffiths.

It must be said that Beaconsfield certainly woke up again with a funny look on Monday.

Plunged into darkness, the Jardins Beaurepaire residence even had the air of a horror movie when the owner Omar Rifai – conveniently a pruner by trade and a chainsaw in hand – made a brief appearance in the living room where have been bringing residents together since Wednesday to enjoy the warmth of the gas fireplace.

“We meet to eat, the children of the tenants bring us lots of dishes, it smells of good coffee. For social life, this breakdown is great! “Launches Robert Couture, who said on Monday that he was still looking forward to taking a hot shower.

“Long live Fiona! And long live our owner, who is also absolutely wonderful! “, launched Anne-Marie Kubanek, a new resident.

The owner, Mr Rifai, was on all fronts – and on the roof – cleaning up the still visible damage left by the freezing rain on Wednesday. And this, while at home, on the banks of the river, the two pumps had to be monitored at all hours of the day and night to prevent the water from rising in the basement.

While her father took care of his residence for the elderly, Kelley Rifai stood guard at the family residence.

What did he miss the most, like all the people he met? The computer? Television? ” No ! The heat ! replied Kelley Rifai.

Hundreds of employees still mobilized

Because paradoxically, if the weather was great in Montreal – up to 17 degrees – and the sun was really like spring, in the houses it was cold and damp.

It was therefore in her coat, in her living room, that Susan Johnston reminded us that she had no electricity “since Wednesday at 1:34 p.m.”.

“We are really among the last to still not have electricity,” she lamented in the afternoon, while also dreaming of a good hot shower.

At the very least, Hydro-Quebec employees were on his street. William de Carufel was still having a 16-hour day. Usually assigned to the underground electrical network in downtown Montreal, he was delighted to be in the field. “I’m happy to move. Teleworking, tasks behind the computer, it had cut my legs a little too much. »

Again Monday, 1,600 Hydro-Quebec employees were hard at work on the ground.

Many of those interviewed felt like they were the last ones still in the dark, sometimes looking longingly at the next door neighbor who was no longer cold.

At the end of the evening, Hydro-Québec calculated that 9,773 homes in Montreal, 2,182 customers in the Outaouais and 1,528 others in the Montérégie (the three most affected regions) were still without power.

In total, nearly 1.1 million Hydro-Québec customers have been affected by an outage since Wednesday.