Various members of Toronto's west-end communities have asked government officials and Toronto Hydro representatives for a public information meeting as a followup to the January 15-16 2009 blackout. A public meeting has been scheduled for Thursday January 22 at 7:00pm. Here are the details:
When: Thursday January 22 at 7:00pm
Where: Parkdale Public Library, 1303 Queen St. West (map)
More info: The CELOS website has a Power Blackout information page
See below for an email sent by Jutta Mason regarding the Blackout followup meeting and other related information.
Hi again -- M.P.P. Cheri Di Novo is having a public information meeting on the blackout at the Parkdale Library this Thursday Jan 22 at 7 pm. She wrote: Councillor Gord Perks and representatives from Toronto Hydro and Hydro One will be there to answer any questions from our community members.
No word back yet from Mr.Ruprecht or Councillor Giambrone, about whether they plan to send representatives to this meeting. Doesn't matter -- hopefully the Hydro guys will be able to explain the complexities of a big-city power grid and a touchy sprinkler system, and that's a good start.
As promised, we've set up a quick-and-dirty "Blackout page" on the CELOS website: http://celos.ca/wiki/wiki.php?n=Blackouts.FrontPage. It has various e-mails, including one from DIGIN chair Donna Cowan, who also urged a public meeting, and several between Donna and Barbara Switzer, the city emergency coordinator, who shows that the city had a remarkable range of remedies in place: http://celos.ca/wiki/wiki.php?n=Blackouts.EmergencyServices.
Of great interest is the inclusion of some information about how to cope with a winter blackout in the short term (wind-up radios, flashlights and candles, battery packs, generators) and how to maybe become less dependent on the grid in the medium term (gas furnace workarounds that can take the place of the usual hardwired electrical fan) and the long-term (masonry ovens, solar panels, home wind turbines, provincial and federal subsidies for off-grid stuff). A bit of that information is on the website already: http://celos.ca/wiki/wiki.php?n=Blackouts.OffGridInfo, and I'm hoping to collect some more before (and on) Thursday. We'll post anything any of you send -- "keep those cards and letters coming," -- and hopefully the meeting will be good for finding more resources, neighbour to neighbour. We'll post everything we learn there, for those of you who can't come.
A few folks on the e-lists must be reporters because the Star called to do a story on the meeting.
Jutta Mason
There is so far one mention of this meeting in the media:
Answers sought on west-end blackout - Toronto Star, Jan 20, 2009
Comments
Blackout meeting: Notes
Councillor Gord Perks posted notes from the meeting on his website today:
http://www.gordperks.ca/park_post/2009/01/23/power-outage-public-meeting/
Blackout: Adam Giambrone's email
Here is an email from Adam Giambrone, sent via the Dufferin Grove and Bloor-Lansdowne mailing lists. Note that Giambrone is trying to get another meeting together with Tony Ruprecht, possibly next week.