Six devastating tornadoes hit neighbourhoods in Ottawa and Gatineau on Sept. 21, leaving many Ottawa residents, including Carleton students, stranded and displaced for days due to major power outages and damage to their homes.
Carleton’s president and vice-chancellor Benoit-Antoine Bacon addressed members of the Carleton community affected by the storm, in a press release on Sunday after the severe weather conditions over the weekend.
The release said the university would still be operating on the Monday following the storm but that Carleton “recognizes it may not be safe for some members of the community to travel,” following a warning against non-essential travel from the Ottawa Police Services.
“The Carleton community is caring and known for supporting one another. During recovery efforts, let’s work together to ensure our fellow students, friends, colleagues and neighbours are safe,” Bacon said.
Emergency alerts
At exactly 4:44 p.m. on Friday evening, Environment Canada issued an emergency alert that warned most people with cell service in Ottawa about the impending tornado.
“We always get those warnings,” Adriana Hernandez, a fourth-year anthropology student who lives in South Keys, said. “We didn’t think anything of it. We were like, ‘oh, it’s just a stormy night.’ We had a tornado warning a couple of weeks ago but it turned out to be just a storm.”
“I didn’t expect the water to go out, or the power to go out. I heard ‘tornado’ and I didn’t even really know the effects that would come of it,” Talia Ammari, a third-year health sciences student, said.
For second-year political science student Aarthi Palanisamy, who lives alone and had her closest friends out of town for the weekend, the warnings did not show up on her phone.
“I didn’t know about the tornado until I bumped into someone at the bus stop,” she said, “I thought he just said it in passing, I thought he meant ‘storm’ or was just exaggerating.”
The power outage
Shortly before the tornado, there was a massive power outage in the city that continued over the weekend.
According to a release from Hydro Ottawa, more than 170,000 customers were affected by the power outage as of Tuesday morning.
Abby Salvatore, a first-year history student, said she was in her Nepean home with her family when they faced the power outage.
“When our power went out, we had no idea what was actually happening,” Salvatore said. “We didn’t know that actual tornadoes had touched down.”
Salvatore said no one in her family had fully charged their cell phones and uneven cell service meant she was unable to make any phone calls. She added that she sparingly turned on her data to check for updates on the storm.
Salvatore’s family remained without power until late Sunday night.
Palanisamy said her Centretown apartment building was completely dark when she walked in late Friday evening.
“I thought the power outage would last maybe two hours,” Palanisamy said, adding she had to climb seven stories in the dark to reach her apartment.
“My service was completely cut off at around 11 p.m.,” she said, “People tried to call me to ask if I was okay, but I only got the notifications the next morning and the phone calls never came through.”
In South Keys, Noor Junaid, a third-year health sciences student, said she did not have power for more than 48 hours after the storm.
“Outside, there was a lot of banging, but when I looked out I couldn’t see anything because the rain was so hard and then the power just went out and it was completely dark,” Junaid said.
A weekend with no power
Students facing power outages began to seek out places that still had electricity.
The Rideau Centre was packed with people surrounding outlets, taking turns charging electronics throughout the weekend. Some came prepared with power bars and extension cords.
Palanisamy said she tried to go to the Tim Hortons near her apartment.
“It was packed with people so I couldn’t sit down and check the news on my phone or anything. It was completely packed, like to the brim,” Ammari said.
After trying to find space in other restaurants, including those in the Rideau Centre, Palanisamy decided to go to Carleton, where Junaid and Ammari had stayed the night before.
“There was Wi-Fi and lights at Carleton, so we just stayed at school until seven in the morning, until there was a little bit of light outside,” Ammari said.
Junaid said the university’s campus was the best way to work on her course work in light of the power outage.
“I had to get an assignment done, and I have some midterms coming up so I had to go to [Carleton] to study and do my work,” she said.
Salvatore said she was supposed to work that weekend but her fast-food workplace on Merivale Road did not regain power in time. Instead, she worked at a different location, on Hog’s Back Road.
“It was so, so crazy busy because people were just coming in to get a warm meal. And it was surprising—everyone was really well-behaved and the amount of people who were like, ‘thank you so much for working’, and ‘this really means a lot to us.’ I was like ‘Oh wow, I’m just coming in to my job, but apparently I’m making a difference’,” said Salvatore.
She added that the storm had a way of bringing the community together.
“People came in and were like, ‘Oh, I just came from my neighbour’s house, and we’re helping them clean up and now we’re going to this, this and this person’s house,’” Salvatore said. “There was a lot of positivity for what had just happened.”
Palanisamy, alone in her house with uneven phone service, said she worried about what she was going to eat.
“I was so worried that the money I had spent on my weekly groceries would just be wasted,” she said. “When people asked me how I was, I was like ‘my groceries!’ Literally all my texts to people were about my yogurt. I’m fine, but like, what about my yogurt?”
Junaid said she was worried about a lack of food too.
“The Walmart near me was closed, and businesses that were open only took cash. I wish I had known to take cash out,” Junaid said, “People definitely had it worse, but it was hard to access food without power.”
The damage
Hernandez said the storm caused her to worry a lot about how her living situation would be affected.
“We saw pictures of my neighbour’s house on Twitter,” Hernandez said, “And we got a little scared because we’re renting and we don’t have that security of knowing we can go to our parents in such a situation, because my parents live two hours away; my boyfriend’s lives eight hours away.”
Hernandez said her house ended up with a collapsed fence after the storm, but that her landlord would likely cover the damages.
On Saturday, Salvatore and her family drove through the Craig Henry neighbourhood near the Nepean Sportsplex—one of the areas most affected by the storm in Ottawa.
“These huge trees, that were definitely over 50 years old, were uprooted and ripped out of the ground,” Salvatore said. “It looked like the tornado had just blown through the middle of the street and just ripped apart all the houses.”
Following the storm, streets in Nepean—such as Arlington Woods and Riverbrook Road—were completely blocked off by police and city workers because of broken glass.
Power lines and smaller electricity towers in the area had also collapsed.
“There was debris everywhere. All the fencing was gone. People’s properties were ruined, roofs were gone, cars were smashed. It was scary to go through,” Salvatore said.
She paused and said, “I’m so glad we were on the lesser side of it. We didn’t lose anything except for power.”
Preparing for an emergency
Some students said they needed more time to prepare for the severe weather, adding the warnings should have come earlier than they did.
Palanisamy said the city should have been more informed of the serious weather conditions.
“I think Ottawa itself as a city should be more prepared,” Palanisamy said. “There wasn’t enough awareness of the impending storm. I had no idea it was going to happen. I didn’t know if we were supposed to receive text messages during or after the storm, if maybe those just didn’t send. If they knew it was going to happen, they should have sent out alerts.”
She added Carleton should have also sent out warnings to students about the severity of the weather.
“Any way of reaching people to inform them of that should have been used—text or emails from schools,” Palanisamy said, “If they knew it was going to happen, they should have sent out alerts.”
Salvatore said something similar.
“If I had been informed that morning that there was going to be severe weather, I would have made sure my phone was fully charged, that I had batteries for my flashlight,” Salvatore said.
Hot showers, residence laundry facilities, and same-day health and counselling facilities are also currently available for those affected by the tornadoes.
Carleton students and members of the community who need support and assistance in the aftermath of the storm are asked to reach out to the university by calling 613-520-2874 or emailing vpstudents@carleton.ca.
—With files from Victoria Gravesande
Photos by Jordan Haworth
