Winter is coming. Our cities aren’t ready |
A man attempts to remove a fallen tree branch as it blocks a sidewalk following an accumulation of freezing rain in Montreal, April 5, 2023.Graham Hughes
Brodie Ramin is a physician, author and assistant professor at the University of Ottawa. His latest book is Written in Blood: Lessons on Prevention from a Risky World.
We live in the north but still act surprised when it snows.
Every year Canadians shake their heads in dismay as our infrastructure collapses under the pressure of our pounding winters. The ice storm of April, 2023, knocked out power for 1.3 million customers in Ontario and Quebec. Roads froze, trees snapped under the weight of ice, and entire communities were plunged into darkness for days. Hospitals, shelters and warming centres were overwhelmed.
This past February, a severe mid-winter thaw flooded homes and overwhelmed drainage systems, inflicting more than $260-million in insured damage across Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. A month later, an ice storm left more than 300,000 Ontario homes without electricity, while hundreds of thousands more across central and Eastern Canada faced rolling outages.
These are not anomalies; they are repeated tests of our readiness. And we keep........