Coffee break

This year, the assigned hurricanes are familiar.  I mean literally.  Lot of them have names that are in my family.  It's a bit disconcerting, seeing the trouble they're causing.

The images of the destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Fiona this weekend were sobering, but an antidote, of a sort, came in viewing the local coverage in Atlantic Canada.

Mind you, Halifax had a relatively mild time of it, as Fiona (wince) made landfall near Cape Breton.  Still the footage showing the conditions of the streets in Halifax reminded me strongly of Hurricane Earl, when I was there in 2010.

In between reports of devastation, the CBC reporters out of the Halifax office were chatting like neighbours at a barbecue.  They kept mentioning coffee.  No electricity, so difficult to make coffee.  The weatherman had been up for over 24 hours; he'd been getting by on five cups of coffee.  A man on the street was stopped for an interview - was he out to look at the downed trees?  No, he was looking for a cup of coffee.  (Chuckle, chuckle)

Even this morning, a journalist writing an essay for the National Post, wrote wistfully and a bit uneasily of the changes he'd seen in hurricanes over the years, while living in the Halifax area.  He described brewing a cup of coffee for someone sheltering at his home.

Clearly, what Halifax needs is coffee.  Cape Breton, Charlottetown, and Port aux Basques need electricity. And infrastructure.  And new houses.