Photo byYannick Menard onUnsplash

Something interesting happened last night. Around 7:40 pm, I was watching the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Michelle Yeoh’s character was about to jump into another universe when the screen suddenly went black. I waited for a few seconds, thinking that it was part of the movie. Then I realized that the power had gone out! 

I went out onto my balcony to look around, and to my surprise, a huge part of downtown Toronto was experiencing a blackout. In the distance, I could see some buildings that still had their lights on, but all around me it was black. People started to shine flashlights and cell phone lights in their apartments and on their balconies, and some people started yelling and cheering, apparently amused by the sudden loss of power! 

Soon I could hear the sirens of emergency vehicles approaching. Firefighters responded to the emergency calls of people stuck in elevators, and police cars rushed to intersections where traffic lights had gone out in order to guide traffic. There wasn’t much to do except wait, so I took a nap.

In total, the blackout lasted about 3 hours. When the lights came on again around 10:40 pm, I checked the news to see what had happened. It turns out that a raccoon had “made contact” with some electrical equipment and knocked the power out! Yep… a raccoon, and Hydro Toronto reported that the condition of the raccoon was unknown, so apparently people care about what happened to the little troublemaker! It’s a very Canadian story. 

Here is something else that is strange and Canadian. Typically, the word “hydro” refers to water (e.g. “hydrophobia” - the fear of water), but in Canada it also refers to electricity. Hydro providers, like Hydro Toronto, supply electricity, and at the end of each month I have to pay my hydro bill. Why? Well, it’s just short for “hydro-electricity” as much of our electricity is generated by hydro dams (using water power).