Braving the Great Ontario Ice Storm of 2025 — Part 1

This is what the end will be like

Freezing rain and icicles (photo by author)

This is what the end will be like. The smell of shit wafting through the house, the toilets all already flushed, the house too cold, no one able to get in or out, and no one coming to help.

The driveway is a skating rink. Half an inch of smooth clear ice on everything, every blade of grass, every twig on every branch. The balcony glass is covered in ice, the view blocked like a frosted bathroom window. At the top of the balcony glass, a few inches of melt reveal what the vertical lines are: thick icicles from the balcony roof. Some are thicker than a couple of inches, far enough away from the north end where the corner pine blocked some of the ice. Nearer to it, the icicles are LESS: lesser, smaller, thinner, less frequent.

We knew it was coming, all of it. That’s the funny thing.

The forecast first warned, a week out, of heavy snow. Then, midweek, of heavy rain. By the end of the week, it turned into a freezing rain warning. We’ve lived through such things before, but never in this rural house. The last bad storm was more than ten years ago, in the suburbs.

Saturday

We woke to the ice over everything, but still embraced by normality. We still had power. And we’d made some preparations already. We had plenty of bottled water. Some soap jugs with washing water. A couple of jugs of drinking water. Candles. Batteries. Flashlights. I’d covered the path to the chicken coop, and left the table coop (inside the carport) open so all I needed to do was chuck in some feed.

Sidebar:

Some of the chickens are Silkies, smaller than regular chickens and fluff-feathered. Marco Polo saw them in China. The Silkies don’t roost well, so they get put away every night in an extra layer of protection, the original table-coop from 8 years ago. Predators are likely to come in the night, but since we completed a full barrier across the front of the carport we haven’t lost any birds that way. So, if I left the table-coop door open, I would be able to feed and water them without stepping INTO the carport at all, all chickens would be able to eat and drink, and I’d be able to stay relatively clean. This is important if we lose power.

End of Sidebar.

My ice defenses worked perfectly.

Old socks over the gate latches. Empty feed bags weighted down with last year’s eggplant pots. And an outdoor table covering the step of the south door.

The power lasted all day. We gloated at the outage map, how we were in the middle of a little island of no outages, a range coincident with the 2022 tornado which downed many local trees that would likely be causing the biggest problems now. How lucky, we thought.

Confident, cocky, lazy, de@d. A mantra from an old science fiction book. We were at “cocky”, on Saturday. Or maybe “lazy”. In any case, somehow we went to bed without refilling the drinking water jugs.

Sunday

The power went off after midnight, because we woke up when things pinged back to life. After we managed to go back to sleep, the power went off at 3-something, just for a moment. I was awake enough to realize this, I think.

And then at 7, it went. All of it.

With it, the water (electric pump in the well), and the heating (electric ignition of propane furnace).

Light a fire? The propane fireplace has its chimney blocked, because the winter wind rattles terribly. Besides, it’s encased in half an inch of ice. The imagined easy-release mechanism is not going to work.

There’s a fireplace in the basement, for wood. The chimney top has mesh over it to keep out squirrels. Yes, seriously, and from experience. So if we managed to light a fire and get a column of warm air rising through the chimney rather than smoking out the house (again, experience) the mesh is likely blocked by ice, and if we even got a fire going, the damp would ensure it clogged with creosote. Still, this would be the best option for keeping the house above freezing, with an emphasis on the water pipes and equipment in the basement.

In the garage, a pellet fire. It needs electricity to turn the feeder rotor, and to turn it on.

Also in the garage, a smoker. Same deal. Electric feeder and ignition.

On the balcony, a barbecue. We later used that to boil up a pan of water and warm through some frozen naans. Yeah, living it up bigtime.

And candles. Some members of the household do not like the smell of burning candles. Shrug. Last time, back in the suburbs, we heated up (to deliciously hot temperatures) a cup of water over a single candle flame in just half an hour. Somehow, we weren’t able to repeat that today.

So, what does a Canadian do when they are too cold? Layer up. I’m wearing two pairs of socks, three pairs of pants, two T-shirts, a cardigan, and a big fluffy Comfy (TM).

The phone still has power. I charged it up on Friday, before, but not yesterday.

I went on data, but the outage map wouldn’t load. Not enough rural bars?

I texted Hydro One, the electricity company, to “report” the outage. They know already, but it’s the way to get updates.

The update came in. 11 pm. Sunday night. HAHAHA.

Every so often, Hydro One texted that workers were working in the neighbourhood, and if we were still without power, reply OUT. After a few such updates, we’re still out.

Before too long, I had to GO. You know? And let’s just say it was necessary to flush. It’s not fun to talk about, or to think about, but there it is.

I fed the chickens as planned, staying “clean” and just chucking feed through the doorway. And slipping watering bowls in without stepping inside.

There’s more ice today than yesterday. It’s more slippery. I needed to wear my spiked shoes.

My parents called. They had cuts overnight (in town), but have power today. Did we want any extra blankets?

Not really! Besides, the roads are bad, the driveway worse, and we have plenty of blankets.

Can’t we get out of the house? The garage door has a manual lever to physically pull the door up. Maybe I still have enough back strength (after last fall’s medical events) to lift it. If it isn’t glued to the concrete floor on the outside — by ICE. And then the driveway. Could we get out of it? Seems unlikely.

And the phone, sure we can charge it in the car from the battery, but if we can’t get out of the garage, or the driveway, what good does that do us?

Next door has a generator. I know because it has been running all day. Earlier, it stopped. I imagined they had run out of gas. Probably so, because a minute later it was back on. Obviously, they’d filled the tank. It happened again in the afternoon. How much gas does it take?

And why don’t WE have a generator? Well, the thing is, we do. It’s still in its box in the garage. And it has to sit outside, so many feet from the house, and the wire has to snake through a partially open door. So any heat we’d be able to add with an electric heater would be lost with the draft through an open door, even if it was just ajar.

Outside it’s about plus 3C. Inside, the furnace thermostat says 17.0C. The thermometer near me on the table says 16.0C. Before going out on the balcony to heat water on the barbecue, this nearby thermometer said 16.5C. In the basement it’s 12C. So we aren’t looking at frozen pipes, which is something to be grateful for. The forecast is for some slight warming this afternoon and into tomorrow.

We heard that 200,000 customers are without power. Yep, we’re one of them.

I had big plans for today. Income taxes. A few important posts online. Chores. At least I finished up Maple Batch #2 last night, with a yield of 1.5 liters bottled and a small bowl left over.

Sidebar:

Every maple syrup batch is different, because I don’t measure the moisture content or temperature. I just eyeball it, and balance my impression of its readiness with my level of impatience, and “finish it off” when I’M ready as much as when IT’S ready. Batch #2 was one of the best results I ever had in all these years of mapling. But the bowl was in the fridge, which we didn’t open until after the power came back. #spoiler?

End of Sidebar.

The balcony ice is a double prison, the ice covering the glass blocking the view, and the long icicles like iron bars. It’s actually very pretty. Yesterday, when I ventured out onto the lawn to check the furnace vent was clear, it was like walking on creme brulee, each footstep like a spoon smack. It’s eerie and dreamlike to see everything encased in ice, frozen drips on the washing line, wooden pegs fully enclosed in ice like a wasp in ancient amber. The trees bent over with the weight of ice. It’s incredible to see.

We played cards for an hour or two. A fun distraction.

Now there’s an old video of the Lebanese Sawra (“revolution”) playing on an old laptop which still has a bit of battery. The “Legends of the Fall” soundtrack has been playing on repeat on a tablet. And here I am, able to type for a little while longer.

What happens when the batteries all run out?

What happens when the drinking water runs out?

What happens when the freezers melt?

What happens when … ?

What if the power never comes back?

What if this is the end?

Is this what the end will be like, only worse? No power (and therefore no water) forever?

When US invasion forces have bombed the power stations, how will we live?

If this is not THE end, and we have a few specific options. Besides freeing up the chimneys in plenty of time for a future emergency, that is. We could get a generator that hooks up to the whole electric box, and would therefore power even the water heater and water pump. It would take an electrician and some expense, but it’s doable.

Less invasive than that, an electric power bank (an electric version of a generator), that you can charge up when there is power, or connect to solar panels when there isn’t. I’ve seen such things advertised here and there, more so in the days leading up to November’s election than now.

We’ve joked that we are living today as if we are camping. It’s true, but it’s no joke. It’s a wake-up call to do more, be more prepared, to make whatever changes we can while we still can.

Rather than just waiting for the batteries to run out, or for the next Hydro One update text. They’re still coming. Crews have been at work in my area. If I still have no power, reply OUT. Time of restoration is “as soon as possible”.

The phone is at 51%.

Eight more hours before 11 pm.

One more text from Hydro One: the “new” and “updated” estimated time of restoration is … 11 pm.

Part 2 of this tale of survival and adversity is here!

Thanks for reading!