Wednesday, July 10, 2013

It was a dark and stormy night

Oh, we have been bad bloggers this past week. Except Eileen. Eileen rocks.

Just a warning. Next week 3 of us will be out of town at a conference, so we might be bad bloggers next week too. Or not. We like to keep you all on your toes.

I thought I'd share a few of the fun, fun, fun images from Toronto's evening of rain. We got more rain in  90 minutes than the city normally gets in the entire month of July. It's so scary what can happen when extreme weather hits aging infrastructure. Especially during rush hour in one of the worst cities for commuting.

Now, Toronto gets thunderstorms in the summer. Lots of them. We're used to it. We are not storm wimps. Trees come down every year. But the volume of rain this time was pretty incredible.

Molly was stuck in traffic for hours with her kids and I think Sinead has been without power since Monday night. Me? I went to the movies and escaped 90% of it. Feeling lucky. (Although I still haven't gone down into my basement. I'm too busy this week to deal with a flood and therefore have decided that I didn't have one.) (Okay, I did peek down the stairs and didn't see any water, but should have checked around the drains...)

Here's a few shots stolen from people's twitter feeds.





Storm coming in



This one is right near my house... If I walked 2 blocks I'd be on the bridge that this shot was taken from. Now... this highway is in a river valley. But it never floods. And this is the second time this year that it has flooded. First time wasn't this bad and everyone was so astonished. 


Another one looking down into the Don Valley. This one of Bayview Avenue, which also runs up the valley on the other side of the river to the highway.


Right downtown on The Esplanade.


On a bus...



Eerie shot of the DVP at dusk.


And a commuter train ended up in the flood. This is also in the Don Valley not far from my pad.


A shot that looks like it's taken from a northern suburb, of the storm moving in.


A shot of the flooded train.


Another city shot from an apartment to the north of downtown.


Crazy flooding in underpasses.... 


Dude who decided to get off the GO train and walk. Dummy.


Shot in Mississauga, a western suburb.


Police marine unit (normally just on the lake, not, um highways) rescuing people from the train.


One of the downtown subway stations. 


An erupting storm sewer. 


A shot taken on the submerged GO train.


And another.


Crushed car just east of me.


And another shot from that train.



7 comments:

Shelby said...

wow...so much water! now see, if you were having the heat wave you had last year again, the water might not be so bad! I all seriousness I feel extremely bad for you all and hope you get dry soon!

Maureen McGowan said...

Heat wave started up again today. LOL

Thanks, Shelby. I was just listening to a news guy wondering whether the Don Valley Parkway flooding twice in 5 weeks was the new normal, or just two freakish occurrences happening very close together...

Eileen said...

Crazy. Just completely crazy.

Anonymous said...

Wow! Great pictures. Saw some of those images on my commute home, where you had to find high roads or risk getting your engine flooded.
It was an experience, that's for sure.

Stephanie Doyle said...

Crazy stuff!!!

Maureen McGowan said...

Sinead, I'm glad you found high roads to drive on. But then you always take the high road. ;)

Also, as horrible as it was for Molly to be stuck in traffic for so long, I'm glad she wasn't a few hours earlier and floating in her car with her kids...

Maureen McGowan said...

Because, um, Molly was taking the low road. ;)

By the lake, I mean...

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...