General

On May 21, I was outside dropping my daughter at her cousin's house for a play date. On my way back home with my baby, I started receiving alerts from Environment Canada. I was not worried because we often receive alerts but nothing too serious ever happens. When I got home it started raining, it was a light rain, nothing scary. My baby was sleeping, I put him in his crib and then I poured myself a glass of wine and sat down to relax and unwind. My husband was out, and the house was quiet so I was happy to have some time alone to watch a movie without the kids screaming. Slowly, the rain became heavier and heavier, the sky went dark grey, and big hails began to fall, and that's when I realized that it was a real thunderstorm, so I turned off the TV and went upstairs, sat in a rocking chair in the baby's room ready to grab him to go in the basement if things got worst. Shortly after I saw lightning with a windstorm then the power went out.

Right after the storm, I heard ambulance sirens. I tried to call the house where my daughter was but no one answered. Then my husband called me and sent me photos, and videos of where he was. There was a lot of damage from the storm already. He was out at his mother's house with his older brother; a big tree fell right after they got into the house. He was still in shock while talking to me about it.

Later in the afternoon, after the weather was calm, I tried again to reach my husband's cousin where my daughter was, but still no answer. I was not too worried because she was with family and I knew if something bad had happened they would've called me immediately. I went for a walk with the baby while waiting for the power to come back but nothing happened. Then, I went to pick up my daughter around 7 pm after hearing back from the cousin.

The night began to fall without power. It was dark everywhere. My daughter was so excited, she kept talking and talking about the thunderstorm and the power outage. For her, it was an adventure. We lit candles for a while then we went to bed very early hoping that the power would come back during the night. The next day, we were still out of power, we couldn't cook, watch TV or take a hot shower, it was horrible. My husband went out to buy breakfast, it was chaotic in Ottawa, and the McDonald’s close to our house was closed. He went to Tim Hortons and the lineup was HUGE. A lot of restaurants, supermarkets, and gas stations were closed. If there was an open restaurant, the lineup was endless. Lots of streets were closed because of the fallen trees and electric posts. In short, there was chaos I had never seen in Canada.

One of my husband’s sisters came to our house with a generator to keep our refrigerator and freezer working so we don't lose our groceries. She and her husband brought us food and we went to their house to take shower for the next four days. When we went out to fill up gas in my car, we were in the lineup for over 20 minutes before we saw a message "sorry we are out of supreme gas". Luckily, we knew that my husband's car was full, at least we had one car in case of emergency.

Although thankfully, we received a lot of help from family, we found those 4-5 days without electricity and limited options very difficult. I can't even imagine how difficult it may be for people who live in countries that have wars, tsunamis, or earthquakes. It made me realize how small my problems were compared to those people who are fighting to escape or survive bigger crises. My thoughts and prayers went out to them.