Storm front

The first indication that anything was wrong came in an email on the Resident Fan Boy's computer at work.

Now, as it happens, the Resident Fan Boy was ensconced in his lonely basement office in Victoria. (Safe from any tornado in Ottawa, but safety is a relative term. Last winter, they cleared his building in a bomb scare, but no one remembered he was in the basement. He came up to look for someone to go for coffee, and found the floors deserted. Someone eventually ran back in to look for him.)

Our problem is that Elder Daughter and the Accent Snob live in Ottawa. The RFB texted me, I turned on the Weather Network, and sat clutching my phone as I gazed at maps featuring large swathes of violent pink and orage orange, which traced a line of storms making their way from the Great Lakes to the Ottawa River.

After a couple of worried texts from me, elder daughter, at work and about to go out to dinner, gave up and phoned me, assuring me that there had already been a tornado watch earlier in the summer that had come to nothing.

She seemed to forget that she was talking to someone who lived in Ottawa for seventeen years. Yes, I know that a tornado watch/warning usually pops up at least once every summer, and it usually comes to nothing -- but not always. About ten summers ago, the RFB was alone in the house in New Edinburgh, when the sky turned a kind of dark green, and the meteorologist on the Weather Network was burbling in excitement that a tornado was heading straight for the city. The RFB and our neighbour, who had the other half of our semi-detached, played chicken on the porch before heading down to their respective basements. The tornado veered and hit near Cornwall, a small city to the south-east.

Anyway, elder daughter assured me she was all right, and checked on the Accent Snob in her apartment, before hailing an Uber with a colleague to go to a farewell dinner for another coworker in some place called Cedarhill - which turned out to be about five kilometres west of the Merivale Power Station, which was completely knocked out by the tornado, or a related storm, and about five kilometres south of Arlington Woods and Craig Henry neighbourhoods, which looked like this today:

Gatineau, Québec, across the Ottawa River from the centre of the city, and Dunrobin, Ontario, a rural community to the northeast of Ottawa, got the worst of it. Casualty reports are still small; no reported deaths, but at least half a dozen seriously injured people, one with "life-threatening injuries".

Elder daughter and her coworkers ended up having a candle-lit dinner when the power failed, but the food was already cooked. She made it home safely to the Accent Snob, who apparently had a "panic poop" and covered it with a blanket. Elder daughter has power, but thousands across the city don't, including our former neighbour, who reports that it seems to be just "our block". She's had a baby recently, and was able to retreat to her own parents, while the food spoils in the fridge.

Elder daughter reported the strange post-tornado vibe: "The way the weather immediately cleared up is super misleading downtown, because it's all too easy to be like "huh what a lovely day . . . hey, why can't I buy bread?" (Massive line-ups at the stores that aren't closed.)

As for us, I think of where we were exactly a year ago -- having to vacate the house several times a week for showings -- so happy to be here.

Of course, we're in major earthquake territory here. Last winter, I slept through a tsumami alert.

My chief indicator of how serious the situation in Ottawa is?  The Ontario Genealogical Society cancelled their presentations today.  Try telling that to elder daughter....