Maybe you heard...

I'm one of the lucky ones.

PEI has been hit with an ice storm that's knocked out power to much of the Island, and at one point today about 96% of us were without power. Fortunately, I live between the airport and the hospital, so we were pretty quick to get the power back. I just watched the CBC news about it, and our power company (Maritime Electric) is really working hard. Really hard. This isn't Nova Scotia Power, where they say they're working hard, but they don't show it. These guys are doing 16-hour shifts, and are traveling across fields with snowmobiles and bulldozers to get to these poles. NSP could probably take a lesson from these guys.

The other major discussion on the news is the impact on communities. I saw it happen during Juan, White Juan, and those other major storms. All of a sudden, people start caring about other people. Volunteers show up at community centres, fire halls, legions. People go door to door to check on their neighbours. A lot of the Western part of the Island is still without power, and may remain that way till next week. But people are being looked after. Even the fire department is going around knocking on houses with no lights, checking on the residents.

I don't mean to be melodramatic. We had no power for a few hours, but it's mostly back on. I'm perfectly comfortable on the couch downstairs. I can smell tuna casserole cooking upstairs. I'm connected the the Internet on the laptop, and after this I'm probably going to check my favourite webcomics. But now I'm thankful for it all.