Just curious - if you were travelling in any of the areas affected by the mid-August blackout - what did you do to cope?
Did you have to change your travel plans?
Are there any tips you would give to other travellers??

We were at a cottage in Stokes Bay Ont. When we arrived and there was no power, we thought it only affected us and tried to call Ontario Hydro haha! That night we cooked kraft dinner on the bbq for the kids, steaks for the adults, and had a big bonfire. Made s'mores and looked at the stars which were amazing. Only bad part - no pump therefore no toilet - had to use the woods.

I wasn't travelling; just working in my office in downtown Toronto.

First thought a neighbor had blown a fuse, again. Nope. Went to Chapters to get a coffee, but that was locked, so walked to City Hall and bought dinner -- hot dog and fries -- from one of the trucks, which works without electricity and thus had good food at reasonable prices, and, right then, no lineups.

Several hours later, hot dog vendor lineups were dozens of people long.

BAK

We were not in the blackour area - we were traveling to Grand Canyon. Heard about blackout on little TV with poor reception. Cheered that we were not home (local station was reporting it was all of New England as well). Went to dinner at El Tovar and the lights went out (due to a thunderstorm we later learned) but someone decided to tell everyone the blackout had spread to the whole country.

I was in Victoria, BC, sitting happily in the garden watching the hummingbirds. Decided to come in out of the sun, and turned on the TV, which is how I found out about it. Immediately got alarmed because I have a daughter who works in an office tower in Manhattan and is 6 months pregnant. Couldn't reach her, or anybody, other than my son who works in the news department at CBC in Toronto - he really couldn't spend any time on the phone, obviously, since they were in emergency mode but at least I knew he was OK. Finally reached my daughter by around 9 PM Eastern time, after having visions of her stuck in a sweltering subway or elevator or train or heaven knows what. Turns out she was flown home by the company helicopter! My cats, back at home, were reportedly unconcerned, and perhaps even pleased that there wasn't any air conditioning.

Not vacationing at time of blackout...just going about everyday living (just had washed 3 loads of laundry and hung out to dry and had plug still in hand for vacuum cleaner I had just plugged into the wall outlet..actually thought I had blown a fuse) We live in Toronto and were without power for 41 hours.....yep, thats right 41 hours. What a experience. Had a wonderful time with family and friends. Had actually returned to the daycare where I work at 5 and was there till 7:10...we close at 6 but when you have parents stuck on the public transit system and a mom stuck in a elevator you kind of stick around till the last child is picked up.

I had skipped out of work early and was having a massage in the Eaton Centre. The therapist finished the massage and I walked home, more or less cancelling out all the good effects of the massage! Power came back on about 12 hours later for us.

Hi:

I was on the 38th floor of our customer's office in Toronto & staying on the 26th for of the Hilton (one of my collegues was 42nd floor of the Sheraton).

Once we found out how widespread the outage was we headed over to a pub on Queen West for a few hours & managed to 'dine' on a slice of 911-pizza as its ovens were gas powered.

Eventually made it back to the Hilton & they had 1 elivator on their backup generator, so was ~15min wait to get upstairs.

Power came back on at ~11:10pm (I was keeping watch as at the pub we all kicked in $10 for a pool as to when the power came back on & I'd picked midnight, but we made a stipulation that it needed to stayon for 30 min).

Friday/am still no power at our office, so rather than venturing off to Pearsonto get home (figured it would be a mess), I went to Union Station & got a ticket on the 9:30am train to Ottawa(VIA1 was even available). So I then called my collegues at the hotel & they were there with 20 min but by then the train 9:30 train was sold out & they were on the 12:30. The 9:30 train finally left at 12:15 for a 7h30m trip to Ottawa (normally 4hrs & we were 3 hours to Oshawa which is normally <1, as there was still no power for the switches & crossings so they had to be done manually by the train crew, but almsot normal speed from there on).

So I was home by 8pm (about 12 hours after getting to Union Station), my collegues who got there 20 min after me but got stuck on the 12:30 train - they finally left at just after 5pm for the same 7h30m trip getting to Ottawa at ~1am.

So while I fared better than many travelers that day, it was still long & agrivating.

Z