On Monday, Quebecers awoke to the news that over 100,000 households had no power on a bitterly cold day.
And then I watched in amazement as the numbers quickly went down by half, then another 25%, and by late morning all but a few thousand had had their power restored.
To me, it seemed like an absolute miracle.
Quebecers may take their top-notch utility service for granted, but after a few years of living in the Washington, DC area, I certainly do not.
Power outages in the capital city, and in Maryland counties also serviced by Pepco, are all too frequent, often coming with no warning and no immediate precipitating event such as extreme weather or high winds. It was not uncommon to have a lovely, sunny, cloudless day, and for the power to go out suddenly - and remain out for hours.
In these crises, Pepco did very little to get power up and running, preferring to engage in public hand-wringing over the excess of trees which, in their minds, caused the outages. Sending out crews to assess the problem and fix the issue was never their first priority.
In the winter of 2010, Washington was hit by a moderate storm (by Quebec standards) which dumped 2 feet of snow on the area. Pepco's customers lost power for a full week.
Pepco took no responsibility for the outages, or for the delay in getting power back up. Even today, it struggles with keeping the lights on. According to the Washington Post, Pepco reports 70% more power outages than other power companies in big American cities.
Having survived five days in the dark with no heat, I am incredibly impressed that HydroQuebec was able to turn the lights back on as quickly as they did.
Electricity is not the only feature of Montreal that puts DC to shame: our metro system gives us a lot to be proud of, too.
Last week in Washington, smoke filled the L'Enfant Plaza metro station, resulting in 1 death and sending at least 80 to local hospitals (some are still there). In the days since, we've learned that WMATA officials did not learn of the smoke for at least 10 minutes, resulting in a fatal delay. This incident comes just a few years after nine people were killed by a train collision in 2009 on the same metro system.
Service has continued to decline on WMATA, with several rail workers dying in a collision with a train in 2010, and two other rail workers dying on the tracks in October 2013. Riders on the Red Line advise each other never to ride in the first or last cars, warning that trains often hit each other and these cars take the brunt of the impact.
We take a lot for granted in Montreal, but I have learned firsthand that going on the STM and not experiencing regular minor collisions with other trains or track workers is an advantage not shared by some transit systems.
Being blessed by an effective and responsive power utility and a metro system that doesn't kill its riders is something that all Montrealers should be proud of.
A version of this article appeared in the Montreal Gazette on Jan. 19, 2015.
And then I watched in amazement as the numbers quickly went down by half, then another 25%, and by late morning all but a few thousand had had their power restored.
To me, it seemed like an absolute miracle.
Quebecers may take their top-notch utility service for granted, but after a few years of living in the Washington, DC area, I certainly do not.
Power outages in the capital city, and in Maryland counties also serviced by Pepco, are all too frequent, often coming with no warning and no immediate precipitating event such as extreme weather or high winds. It was not uncommon to have a lovely, sunny, cloudless day, and for the power to go out suddenly - and remain out for hours.
In these crises, Pepco did very little to get power up and running, preferring to engage in public hand-wringing over the excess of trees which, in their minds, caused the outages. Sending out crews to assess the problem and fix the issue was never their first priority.
In the winter of 2010, Washington was hit by a moderate storm (by Quebec standards) which dumped 2 feet of snow on the area. Pepco's customers lost power for a full week.
Pepco took no responsibility for the outages, or for the delay in getting power back up. Even today, it struggles with keeping the lights on. According to the Washington Post, Pepco reports 70% more power outages than other power companies in big American cities.
Having survived five days in the dark with no heat, I am incredibly impressed that HydroQuebec was able to turn the lights back on as quickly as they did.
Electricity is not the only feature of Montreal that puts DC to shame: our metro system gives us a lot to be proud of, too.
Last week in Washington, smoke filled the L'Enfant Plaza metro station, resulting in 1 death and sending at least 80 to local hospitals (some are still there). In the days since, we've learned that WMATA officials did not learn of the smoke for at least 10 minutes, resulting in a fatal delay. This incident comes just a few years after nine people were killed by a train collision in 2009 on the same metro system.
Service has continued to decline on WMATA, with several rail workers dying in a collision with a train in 2010, and two other rail workers dying on the tracks in October 2013. Riders on the Red Line advise each other never to ride in the first or last cars, warning that trains often hit each other and these cars take the brunt of the impact.
We take a lot for granted in Montreal, but I have learned firsthand that going on the STM and not experiencing regular minor collisions with other trains or track workers is an advantage not shared by some transit systems.
Being blessed by an effective and responsive power utility and a metro system that doesn't kill its riders is something that all Montrealers should be proud of.
A version of this article appeared in the Montreal Gazette on Jan. 19, 2015.
