As temperatures soared above 40 with humidity, around 1,600 households in Pointe-Claire on Montreal’s West Island were without power Wednesday amid the heat wave, including a seniors’ home.
Hydro-Québec refused to postpone a planned power outage in the area of St-Jean and Hymus Boulevards for what they called “urgent, necessary work” on power lines. The power outage was planned between 7 a.m. and and 1 p.m.
“Very bad timing, they could have waited,” said Sylvia Johns, a resident of Chartwell’s Le Wellesley.
Many seniors, like Johns, were shuttled to nearby shopping malls to stay cool.
“For air conditioning, because I have asthma, so it’s a good place to be,” she said.
The shuttle bus was coming back and forth to the residence throughout the morning for those that wished to leave.
“The residents, a lot of them cannot go or are not as mobile,” said Voula Kollias the general manager at Chartwell’s Le Wellesley. “We have a nursing team that went, visited each resident in their actual unit, provided them with liquids, snacks, if necessary as well, just checking vitals, making sure they’re not dehydrated. And the team did this repeatedly throughout the whole day.”
In Helen Stevenson’s fourth floor apartment, the temperature hovered at 23 degrees by midday and she was able to tolerate it.
“I have no complaints really and truly,” she said. “My apartment, it doesn’t feel warm to me. It’s cool.”
The residence had its own generators to power the elevators and some lights, but the only ventilation possible was through fans and windows being left open. Cold refreshments and colder meals were served.
“I think of the seniors that are home alone, in the same situation, and don’t have a team like us,” said Kollias. “So when I look at the flip side, being in a residence, at least they have that support teams.”
Le Wellesley management had asked for the work to be postponed, but Hydro-Québec refused, saying its “major and extensive” job that involves too many teams working simultaneously on the network and doing it now will prevent longer outages, especially during extreme heat when demand for electricity is high.
“It must have been hard for them to be able to shift the planning of it, so we understand,” said Bill Armstrong, a Pointe-Claire resident. “It’s very inconvenient for them and for us moving forward but as long as we had the notice,” he said.
Armstrong said his family had some time to prepare.
“We made sure that the all the blinds are closed, the windows are closed, the air conditioning was on and we actually decreased the the temperature in the house to make it a little bit cooler so that when the power did go off, we had a more of a buffer zone for the warming up period,” he said. “So right now the house is quite comfortable,” he added, pointing to a thermostat showing around 20 degrees.
Magda Field’s apartment is located in the power outage zone near and on Wednesday morning, she had to go to a nearby gym for WiFi and to bring her frozen food.
“As soon as the power went out, 20 minutes later, you kind of feel it in my place, so I cant imagine people who have no AC,” she said. “My place got pretty hot after an hour, so you have to leave there, you can’t stay there, so it’s very inconvenient for old people.”
The lights were switched back on at Le Wellesley just after 1 pm, just as the utility planned and just in time for many residents to return from the mall.
“Very happy,” said resident Annila Rehman who was clapping as she walked through the door and saw the power was back.