Atlantic Canada: Hurricane Dorian

Massive Hurricane Hits Atlantic Canada

I posted this on Twitter earlier, here is the whole story.

Hurricane Dorian hit Halifax at about 2pm on Saturday afternoon and also the rest of Atlantic Canada. They are saying that this was the worst storm to ever hit Atlantic Canada and the worst power outage in the history of the Province.

The Hurricane was a Category 1 storm and then just before it hit bad I noticed they upgraded it to a Category 2 Hurricane. Then I thought they were going to evacuate my neighbourhood and everyone was scared to death.

Then the power went out, the storm lasted until early Sunday morning and a lot of the power is still out.

I am saying that this storm was way worse that they are saying it is because of the damage to power and cel phone service.

They are saying that the power outage may last for up to five days that's Wednesday night around the Halifax area I am assuming, I do not know what the damage is in the other parts of the Province.

At first it didn't look that bad with just downed trees and stuff blown everywhere but there was no power or cel phones. They are saying that cel towers are on battery backup that failed and then switched to gas power generators but not all cel towers are back up yet and there is not complete phone coverage.

Where I live power is on down by the Halifax Harbour near the Army base and there are libraries there on both sides of the Harbour you can use to charge your cel phones. I was doing that for my cel phone radio. There are some stores open down there like Robins Donuts was open yesterday afternoon by Lake Banook.

Scotia Square had power and some stores were open but Grocery Shopping is minimal.

The Shell Gas Station in my neighbourhood is open I believe with a power generator for the gas pumps and convenience store. I don't think there are delivery trucks running meaning they may run out of inventory, also delivery drivers may be without power at their homes and no one is at work.

It was extremely dark out the last two nights and cold in the apartment buildings with hot and cold air mixed together outside and I think it's making people get the flu or colds.

Here is the terrible part:

There was no emergency government services active in Halifax here in the Capital.

I think they are trying to downplay the storm to get the power back on and not helping the public with food etc. 

Outside it was a mess, there were no lights on at night and the traffic was crazy. There were no emergency vehicles out with police directing traffic and they had no emergency vehicles out on the intersections at night to light up the intersections with no traffic direction from police in pitch black.

Like they just left us to fend for ourselves.

I'm assuming everyone thought this would be resolved quickly and ate their food and stuff but now it has drug into the third day.

It is probably worse in the rural areas.

Here is the point...everyone's food in their fridges went bad and they had to throw it out and don't have money to replace the food, plus it's mostly convenience stores open.

The government has no emergency food or shelter places setup. 

There are no churches or rec centers open with power generators to hand out hot tea or coffee, snacks or juice. There is also no support for infants who need hot water to make baby formula and Similac. 

The power has been out so long that all the food went bad in all the restaurants and grocery stores.

I would not eat any perishable items like milk, meat or produce from any grocery stores including Walmart because all their power was off and that includes their warehouses and all their food is bad.

I would only recommending eating dry goods and bread, coffee, rice etc stuff like that which doesn't go bad.

I would not eat MacDonalds or anywhere when the power comes back on, all the food will be bad as the power was out for three days so far in most places.

Everyone should save their money and only eat minimal dry goods, water, coffee, juice etc because all the food in the stores and warehouse in Atlantic Canada has to be thrown in the garbage.

I am assuming that it will be some time before all the stores in Atlantic Canada can be restocked with fresh food. This will probably take months to recover from.

We will have to also wait to get video footage and pictures that people took of the storm before we can see the rest of the damage.

The grocery stores did not hand out food on Sunday because they were waiting for the power to come back on, then it all went bad.

There needs to be stations at churches and rec center that are gas generator powered to hand out food and supplies and stuff for babies etc and to stop in to get warm but they don't have any.

I have no idea if they have sent help to us from the Federal Government.

Like all the food is gone and the money is wasted. 

People with diabetes are going to be super ill from not having proper nutrition and stuff like that and the hospitals might fill up, then we don't know if the food is any good or not.

I would not eat anything perishable for a while unless you can verify that it is not bad.

Like I said there were no emergency vehicles out at all in the Capital here in Halifax to help the citizens with  no traffic direction, or emergency vehicles at intersections at night with the lights flashing or anything so you could see with traffic direction and there were no food or supply handouts from the government.

We were just left to fend for ourselves with whatever we had in the fridge with no notice and no support. Many people have no hot water, can't take a bath or make infant formula.

All people have is dry goods and water.

There are some services open downtown in Halifax but it was small this morning but you have to buy everything at convenience stores etc. and there is internet and cel phone charging stations at the Libraries. 

I looked on the internet and there were no emergency church lunches or anything planned and no centers handing out food or supplies.

It is going to get worse as the days go by and people get sick plus the food is all expired.

Hopefully, they will be handing out supplies, food and helping us to recover our money that was wasted when our food went bad.

Plus they were still charging for bus service during the Hurricane fallout.

All you can do in Halifax basically as far as I can tell is go out for a coffee or snack and eat at a convenience store primarily, but I didn't see all areas. That is a waste of money but you need to get something.

Don't waste money on perishable items like meat if you have it, get something that will last until everything is restored.

I hope everyone is safe and good luck to all.

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