Ice Storm(!)

[Not The Philosopher]

Hey all. As one or two of you may have noticed, I haven't been posting for the past week. To my knowledge, I seem to be the only Toronto phatmasser, so perhaps I can explain what's been going on.

 

A week ago, Toronto was hit by a crazy freezing rain storm. It knocked out the power for most of the city, and coated everything in ice - including the trees. The branches of the trees then kinda started falling everywhere. All through last week's Saturday night, I could hear them falling, and on Sunday morning our driveway was covered in branches, with a few still dangling dangerously off of our tree (miraculously, the car was unscathed). This made going to Mass a somewhat treacherous affair, as, well, branches were still falling. There were whole side-streets that had been blocked off because trees had toppled over and taken the power lines with them, or had just fallen and completely blocked the road. We had to get some guys with a cherry picker to clean up our driveway

 

(in better news, that Sunday afternoon I saw my mother for the first time in a couple of years, and she seems to be on the verge of reverting to the Church! But that is another story)

 

The power was off at my house until Christmas eve, so things were very cold and miserable for a while. The last couple of days of Advent were a lot more Advent-ish than usual, I guess. Anyhow, although the power went on at just the right time for us to have a comfy Christmas, the internet was still off until today.

 

There may still be people in the city who don't have power, though.

[Brother Adam]

If you were only down until Christmas Eve count yourself very, very blessed. 350,000 were without power in Michigan. We did not have power from Sunday - Friday and thousands are still in the dark and cold. It's given rise to a new crime spree of people stealing generators.

[Not The Philosopher]

If you were only down until Christmas Eve count yourself very, very blessed. 350,000 were without power in Michigan. We did not have power from Sunday - Friday and thousands are still in the dark and cold. It's given rise to a new crime spree of people stealing generators.

 

Yikes! My prayers go out to them.

[ToJesusMyHeart]

If you were only down until Christmas Eve count yourself very, very blessed. 350,000 were without power in Michigan. Thousands are still in the dark and cold. 

 

My friend Cammie and her husband are one of the thousands still without electricity. They have 3 small children and only $20 left in their bank account. They have been told it could still be 2+ weeks until they get power back. 

 

Please help if you can. 

 

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/still-without-power

 

"On the morning of Sunday, December 22nd we woke up in a cold house.  There had been an ice storm the night before and the power had been knocked out.  At the time we weren't worried.  We live near the capital building in Lansing, Michigan.  How long could power be out?  We're practically downtown.  

 

Still, as the day went on and the icy cold set in, we began to look for a place to stay.  We have three children, ages 5, 3 and 1.  Our 1 year old normally sleeps in double layers because even with heat it's pretty cold upstairs. Without heat, and with a non-working fireplace (believe me, we've tried to get it to work... but it's an old chimney in an old house) we knew we'd have to start looking for a place to stay soon.  After being turned away from five places my family located a place that had one remaining room.

 

In the week that's followed we lived in a room with the five of us without hot water.  For two of the days there were long stretches of time with no water at all.  The room was cleaned twice during the week (because we asked the second time, and were told angrily that they didn't change the sheets or do the floors after five days because "we didn't ask"), and while I cleaned it with what was available in the room each day, after a week and with the water off again, we knew we had to find a new place.  

 

Throughout all of this the main thing that has kept us from shelters is our three year old.  She's autistic and has a tendency to run off if not in an enclosed space.  She's struggled with the amount of upheaval in our life this week and is now having behavioral problems that she hasn't had since before her diagnosis.  I don't really feel like I can inflict these particular behaviors on anyone else, which is why having a room of our own has been so necessary.  

 

Along with this, her severe gluten and casein sensitivities and my son's dairy allergy have meant that eight days (and counting) without a kitchen have been extremely expensive, despite my best efforts.  And the cost of driving from the place where a room was available to our home (to pick up supplies and check to see if power was restored) and to my husband's work has been ridiculous (and it now sounds like our brake pads are going... don't expenses like this always pop up at the worst times?).

 

The expenses of the week have destroyed my careful plans for budgeting for the month and I now have less than $20 in our bank account.  

 

At this point the power company has given no estimates about when we'll be able to go home.  They have put up a list of places where they're working, and where they'll be working when those areas are restored, and our area isn't on either list.  On neighbor was told that it could be two weeks.  

 

This has been especially frustrating as my husband is currently a graduate student and I run a small business out of our home, sewing at night to help support our family while in he's school.  I haven't been able to sew or get orders out since we don't have power and I can't sew in the room with the kids at night since my machine inevitably wakes one of them up.

 

Our families are in Massachusetts and California.  We've spent Christmas in a grimy  room without hot water.  Any help getting through the rest of this ordeal will be greatly, greatly appreciated!

 

Any funds we receive will go towards surviving this time without a home.  Our expenses will likely exceed this amount, but this will go a long way towards making this disaster in our lives easier to get past.

 

And we appreciate any way you might choose to share this!  Every little bit will be put to good use! "