At 3:25 p.m. on Saturday, I was hiding in this bus shelter on Carling Avenue wondering what the hell was going on:
The day had started like most Saturdays. It’s the Victoria Day long weekend in Canada but we were stuck in Ottawa—gas is crazy expensive and apparently Airbnb apartments are now around $400 a night in Toronto, definitely not worth it for a quick three-day getaway in a city we already know very well.
So, Feng drove Mark to my in-laws and I cleaned the entire house for three hours. I usually go to the gym for Zumba once I’m done, but classes had been cancelled because of the long weekend.
I decided to walk to Chinatown and buy a few delicious buns at the Chinese bakery instead.
Feng came home just as I was leaving.
“Take shelter if it starts raining!”
“No worries. See you later!”
It was hot, humid, and sticky, and it did look stormy. But The Weather Network app isn’t particularly helpful on days like this—there’s a “chance of a thunderstorm” hour after hour until said thunderstorm breaks… or not.
I looked at the sky and decided to stick to main roads and avenues, just to be on the safe side.
Canada is a big country and cities are very, very spread out. I’m used to the fact it takes at least thirty minutes to go anywhere, and that’s “next door.” Don’t expect much along the way either. Unless you’re in the downtown core, it’s just long avenues or roads through residential neighbourhoods and parks with a few strip malls here and there. Sidewalks are optional and streets are often completely empty. People drive or stay home, walking to places isn’t a Canadian thing to do.
The bottom line is, when you decide to walk from point A to point B, it’s going to take time and you’ll be alone most of the time. On top of that, there aren’t that many places to shelter along the way, like shops or public buildings. Finally, you can’t just “jump on a bus”—I mean, if you see one, let me know, OCTranspo buses are few and far between, especially in residential neighbourhoods.
I could have crossed the Experimental Farm to get to Chinatown but there’s really no shelter there. So I decided to take Merivale Road and Carling Avenue instead—less scenic but at least I could count on a gas station, a couple of convenience stores, a hospital and bus shelters along the way.
It rained for a couple of minutes when I reached Merivale Road, big and cold raindrops. No big deal.
Then my phone vibrated and beeped.
I take weather alerts seriously in Canada, a country where it can be colder than Mars, where tornadoes can rip through the city, where ice storms are common, and where severe weather is no joke.
I rushed to the nearest bus shelter on Carling Avenue.
It started raining hard, very hard. It was almost dark outside when it had been sunny enough minutes before.
Then the wind picked up. When election signs and traffic cones—the heavy kind with a black base—started to fly around I decided that maybe the bus shelter wasn’t the best place to be during whatever was happening. I waited for the green light and ran across Carling to the nearest building where the entrance offered a bit more protection.
I waited for about thirty minutes, half scared and half fascinated by the wind, thunder, lightning and rain.
Then the sky cleared up.
Home or Chinatown? It was a forty-minute walk either way so I still walked to Chinatown. It was back to hot and sticky, a bit rainy but it didn’t matter since I was soaked anyway.
I noticed the first fallen tree just a block further. In fact, broken branches, signs, traffic cones and more were scattered everywhere. Power was out as well in many places, traffic lights didn’t work.
It was only when I came home that I realized how destructive and deadly the storm had been. Our place was fine, our neighbourhood had been miraculously spared from serious damage except for a few fallen trees and damaged fences.
But friends all over Ottawa were texting me because they had lost power. We couldn’t reach my in-laws because of outages in carrier networks.
At least eight people were killed. The city is still a mess today with hundreds of thousands of people in the Ottawa-Gatineau area still without power and it could take days to have it back.
It wasn’t a storm or a tornado but a rare “derecho”.
Never underestimate weather conditions in Canada, a land of extreme weather.
May 24 update
Still no power in many, many areas. I walked around Merivale Road and Baseline, it’s just broken trees everywhere. Schools are closed, supermarkets with power don’t have much left and oh, gas stations ran out of gas.
I’ve already heard of ”Derecho”, but I didn’t remember it could happen that far in the North. I thought it was more a Kansas/Oklahoma thing, when in fact it seems it’s more of a Missouri thing.
I had never heard of it. I was even surprised that tornadoes were a thing in Canada, I associate them with the southern US. Obviously, 2018 proved me wrong…
I heard the name in a training video, strong lateral winds can topple a truck. That’s one of the rare situation where expérience almost doesn’t count. Derecho was mentionned as a windy event that should be considered as accidentogene.
I can see why. There’s a video of the Ottawa derecho showing a parking lot where the wind pushed parked vehicles.
Je n’avais jamais entendu parler de “derecho”, mais ça a l’air impressionnant.
Le sapin tombé, wow !
You should see the fallen trees everywhere… crazy.
First time I learnt Derecho, the pictures of fallen trees are scary!! Weather is unpredictable here in my place. It’s almost (dry season) but heavy rain comes every other day and flood in some part of the city. Last week it took me 3 hours to get home (approx 20K between home and office)
I’ve always visited places with a rain/dry season during the dry season, and the dry season isn’t 100% dry either. I always wonder how people handle so, so much rain… I’m thinking about Central America, for instance, where roads are muddy even during the “dry” season! It takes reliable infrastructures… :-/
That storm was bananas …..
Were you guys okay? Did you lose power?
overnight yet but got it back in morning