Saturday morning, the temperature was fine in Gatineau. The kids were in the pool and I was cooking lunch for the family.

I already knew that the forecast called for rain at the end of the afternoon. The more the hours passed, the more the warnings of the meteorological services announced a watch of storm and violent thunderstorms.

Within minutes the storm had built up and the cushions and umbrella were picked up at just the right time. At that moment, we knew it was going to be brewing. The temperature dropped ten degrees in ten seconds.

Two breakdowns

A few minutes later, the rain fell non-stop and the wind raged.

At 3:51 p.m., we lost the power. That's when the party pretty much ended.

I felt it was going to be a long blackout. The outage map on the Hydro-Québec website confirmed my intuition. Let's just say it was a pretty quiet Saturday night. Especially since my survival gear was quite thin.

A lamp, which I use when I do the program Le Bilan at LCN, allowed us to play with the children. Fortunately, the electricity returned at 4:01 a.m. on Saturday night. But, we lost her again for a few hours on Sunday afternoon.

The next day, I decided to go buy flashlights, but several people had had the same idea. The guy at the local hardware store told me “I should have come before the storm”.

Thanks for the advice !

The next time

I was lucky because several people lost power for almost 48 hours and the less fortunate are still without power.

Clearly, in the coming weeks, I have to review my plan B. It will start with the purchase of a generator. But, this time, I'll go before the next storm.