^
Yeah, that's amazing and disturbing at the same time. But hats off to the men and women who got those people to safety.
Left work at downtown approx 5:15pm....
-got stuck on the subway
-got booted off the subway
-walked from Lawrence Stn to Yonge/Sheppard Stn
-waited 20 min for a bus
Got home at 9:30pm.
Of course, getting home was just the partial battle, since I live in an apartment, and there was no power, I had to walk up the stairs (luckily, I'm not that out of shape). Also luckily, we're always prepared with bottled water and dried foods.
The main thing was to get on some dry clothes. Man that felt good.
You'd think the city planners would do something about flood controls. I don't ever recall the DVP being flooded TWICE in less than a 6-month period.
Also, does anyone in Toronto really think more Subways and Light Rails are the way to go? A simple power outage, and a small non-Calgarian sized flood can shut down the GO and TTC trains, and weren't the streetcars dead as well? If we had spent the money on a fleet of 17,000 additional TTC buses, yesterday's commuter mayhem could have been avoided.
The taxi service had a field day last night that's for sure.
I would also like to note the awesome drivers who offered to pick people up during the exodus from the stations. The elderly really needed the help as shuttle buses were limited.
I was on a TTC train around Davisville Stn, when the downpour occured. By the time it finished, the train moved into Lawrence Stn, and the water dried...the train was really clean!!!
Fairview Mall in virtually complete darkness was kinda spooky.
It's embarrassing to me that a World Class city like ours can be crippled by a little rain and power outage.
So, last power outage that lasted over 2 hours was in 2003, and the last severe DVP flood was a couple of months ago. Any bets on what the next big thing is?