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Poems on the Ice Storm
2 poems by Gordon Rainey |
Mr. Gordon Rainey's son Patrick is a lineman
with Ontario Hydro, out of Vankleek
Hill | glrainey@nortel.ca
Ice Storm '98
© 1998 by
Gordon Rainey
Hats off to the crews of the high wire
They got the grid juice flowing again
For a month double shifting without tire
Battling the century's worst freezing rain
Icy drizzle made trees and lines sag
Layering gradually to unbearable loads
Snapping limbs like reports from a rifle
Pulling power poles down across roads
Pylons buckled and transformers flared
Night sky flashes of eerie, sinister blue
Heralded a massive power black-out
Frigid hell for people and animals too
Local hydro crews alone could not cope
Disaster army units were mobilized as well
Princess Patricia's Lights from Edmonton
The Royal 22nd from Quebec's Citadel
The stampede for too few gas generators
Pets abandoned so masters could stay alive
Real heroes cared for old in the shelters
Unmilked cows simply could not survive
French-English squabbles were put on hold,
Haughty Americans turned friends in an hour
In the fight to rid us of the dark and the cold
By the restoration of our electrical power
Yankee linemen from Western Massachusetts
Old Glory unfurled by Pennsylvania's true
Northeast Utilities teams from Connecticut
All pitching in to see the tough job through
Not forgotten, our past relief rendered
Flood casualties were returning the same
Soothing the cruel winter chill and shiver
Lac St. Jean and Red River help came
Damned be those who sought their advantage
Victims remember them well with their tears
Praise those for giving of gut and of heart
Generous deeds to extol through the years
What lesson learned from mother nature?
She will strike you in many damaging ways
Though battered, undaunted we're pledging
A helping hand through your difficult days
(Mr. Gordon Rainey's son Patrick is a lineman
with Ontario Hydro, out of Vankleek Hill)
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In The Dark Triangle
© 1998 by
Gordon Rainey
They say it was predicted in the Farmer's Almanac
Who has a copy?
Another one ís coming in February
Better believe it now
In the dark triangle
Every tree smashed
Every pole toppled
Every wire to every house down
Devastation enough to awe seasoned veterans
Conditions never dreamed of
In your face, real
In the dark triangle
Who do you blame, God, Satan, El Nino, mother nature?
Seldom heard of, soon forgotten infrastructure sites
Suddenly become focal
They say Saint-Césaire is the culprit
It ís a dead-end, cut off, 230 KV power station
In the middle of the Montérégie area
In the dark triangle
Unexpected, but welcome visitors drop in
The much maligned military, besmirched in Somalia
Saving lives
Prying open the jaws of disaster
In the dark triangle
Who ís going to fix what ís broken?
Hydro lineman, the ones left after downsizing
If there aren't enough locals, don't bother with other
provinces
Call in the Americans, they buy our power
We can cut a deal
In the dark triangle
How long will it take?
About a month to six weeks for the hardest hit areas
The black-out clock started ticking January 5th, 1998
So that makes it cold until mid-February
In the dark triangle
Power design lessons learned include
Underground distribution
Double ice load allowances
Anti-cascading pylons
More redundancy links in grid
Shear-pins to secure lines to pylons
Sag resistant sky grounds
In the dark triangle
Survival lessons learned include
How to hook up a gas generator
How to milk a cow by hand
How to run your furnace off of your car battery
How to tell if hypothermia is setting in
How to get along in a busy refugee shelter
In the dark triangle
Sigourney Weaver stared in the 1973 film
"The Ice Storm"
For some it ís all déjà vu
I'm going to rent it and do a sanity check
On the Hollywood version
Maybe, just maybe, we could have dodged
This whole monumental mess
In the dark triangle
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