9 years later
Discovery has a special going on about hypothermia during the 1998 Montreal ice storm. Repeats again at 1 am for those who miss it (and are up at that time).
Correction: Ah. This isn't about the 1998 ice storm. It's a theoretical disaster show about what would happen during a "perfect" storm. It only mentions the real storm about 10 minutes into the show (with an interview with the lovely Lori Graham). This show is apparently about a much worse storm that would hit the city instead of the silly three-week-long ordeal where only a couple of dozen people lost their lives.
Being a Discovery Channel "disaster" show, it has lots of CGI and makes things look really bad. Besides the cool graphics though, I can't quite figure out how this storm differs from the one we really went through. It's the same cause (a moderate freezing rain storm which gets stuck for almost a week) and the same results (loss of power due to a buildup of ice on transmission lines which fail). Maybe it's just the music.
Was it really eery-music bad? Were we in the perfect disaster?
Yeah, it was cold. My immediate family stayed at home until the heat ran out and we moved into an uncle's place for a few days. The south shore went weeks without power, and emergency shelters were setup all over the place to keep people warm. Crazy things happened, like a train being driven across pavement to serve as an emergency generator, and a few people died either from hypothermia or carbon monoxide poisoning as they lit fires indoors to keep warm.
But the number of fatalities was low, especially compared to other disasters. Property damage was low. The city recovered relatively quickly once the downed power lines were replaced.
Or maybe I just remember it that way. Was it really a disaster worthy of a Discovery documentary? On the other hand, was it so tame that it needs to be gussied up somehow?
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Little tidbit: Since it's a fictional documentary I guess, they decided to change some names. Hydro-Quebec becomes Energie Quebec, and we hear a fictional radio station (which sounds exactly like CJAD) which calls itself City Radio 700.
Correction: Ah. This isn't about the 1998 ice storm. It's a theoretical disaster show about what would happen during a "perfect" storm. It only mentions the real storm about 10 minutes into the show (with an interview with the lovely Lori Graham). This show is apparently about a much worse storm that would hit the city instead of the silly three-week-long ordeal where only a couple of dozen people lost their lives.
Being a Discovery Channel "disaster" show, it has lots of CGI and makes things look really bad. Besides the cool graphics though, I can't quite figure out how this storm differs from the one we really went through. It's the same cause (a moderate freezing rain storm which gets stuck for almost a week) and the same results (loss of power due to a buildup of ice on transmission lines which fail). Maybe it's just the music.
Was it really eery-music bad? Were we in the perfect disaster?
Yeah, it was cold. My immediate family stayed at home until the heat ran out and we moved into an uncle's place for a few days. The south shore went weeks without power, and emergency shelters were setup all over the place to keep people warm. Crazy things happened, like a train being driven across pavement to serve as an emergency generator, and a few people died either from hypothermia or carbon monoxide poisoning as they lit fires indoors to keep warm.
But the number of fatalities was low, especially compared to other disasters. Property damage was low. The city recovered relatively quickly once the downed power lines were replaced.
Or maybe I just remember it that way. Was it really a disaster worthy of a Discovery documentary? On the other hand, was it so tame that it needs to be gussied up somehow?
----
Little tidbit: Since it's a fictional documentary I guess, they decided to change some names. Hydro-Quebec becomes Energie Quebec, and we hear a fictional radio station (which sounds exactly like CJAD) which calls itself City Radio 700.