Scenes from a dark place

Readers in more civilized parts of the world are thanked for their concern. Southern Ontario has not descended into chaos. Mind you, you could be forgiven for thinking it might have, especially in view of the kinds of things some of our leaders were saying.

Prime Minister Chretien had the good fortune to be in Quebec at the time, but his minions were anxious to spin this one southward. The Prime Minister’s Office announced that the power failure had been caused by a lightning strike (or, when that story proved ludicrous, a fire) at a Niagara Mohawk power plant in western New York.

Niagara Mohawk officials shook off that accusation, secure in the knowledge that their electric lights were on and that the bolts from the blue were off. Farther down the Mohawk, New York Governor George Pataki kept his hair on, and declined to put the blame on any of the jurisdictions that were without power. The Mouth of the Hudson was a different story: New York City’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, blamed Canada with all the vehemence of the angry parents on South Park.

Toronto was lucky to have its, er, rugged hero, Mayor Mel Lastman, to come to its defence, with a claim that “the Americans never take responsibility for anything.”

Minister of Defence John McCallum is the man in charge of overseeing domestic disasters, since apparently overseeing the foreign disasters to which the government sends Canadian troops has left him with time on his hands. His aides came up with a cock-and-bull story about a fire at a nuclear generating station in Pennsylvania. (Evidently the Leopard I tank is not the only relic from the disco era at National Defence; now McCallum’s office was replaying Three Mile Island.)

It now appears that aging transmission lines owned by Ohio electrical utility First Energy were the place the power went down. First Energy has pointed out that the entire grid in the northeastern U.S. and Ontario was suffering from voltage spikes and frequency changes for much of that fateful afternoon.

The fingers could be pointing again; but what a relief that the sub-adult political figures that wield them have tired themselves out for now.

Up in Sudbury, Inco miners were not at work, but Falconbridge miners were, and one shift at the Thayer Lindsley mine was caught underground when the power that drives the hoists failed. Nobody was in any danger, but spending the night in the lunchroom would not have been pleasant.

Perhaps it’s a good time to suggest that, against the chance of future situations like this, underground refuge stations be kitted out with some useful comforts. The cost would be nominal, and it might make the inconveniences less stressful.

Anyone who says the miners should have climbed up the manways is sentenced to climb to the main observation level of the CN Tower in Toronto, 4.8 times — in rubber boots, and after a full day’s work. That’s the equivalent of coming up from the bottom working level at Lindsley.

The Globe and Mail congratulated the state of Vermont for having disconnected from the Northeast power grid, thus avoiding the blackout. The Globe, however, missed a similar story closer to home. We are reliably informed that the Minden area, in cottage country, a couple of hours north of Toronto, had electrical service throughout the whole power outage. Apparently an alert local operator saw the blackout coming at his control panel, and took his system off the Ontario grid, leaving it a lit island in a largely dark province.

We would like to be the first to call this exercise a “Reverse Koebel,” after the Walkerton waterworks operator whose disregard for proper practice contributed heavily to the outbreak of coliform infections in the town in May 2000. There’s a lot to be said for having competent people on the ground running a decentralized show, but an efficient one. Some bigger organizations have something to learn from Minden.