CALGARY – An electrical fire in the power grid plunged dozens of blocks in the heart of Calgary into total darkness over the weekend, causing significant inconvenience and uncertainty for the nearly 70 people who live there.
“We expect to have power restored to the downtown core by Thursday at the latest,” said Mayor Nenshi at a press conference. “And I intend to personally apologize to each and every Calgarian who reside in the city’s centre. It should take me a couple hours.”
Sources speculated the power outage could have been far more harmful if it happened in a city where people did not live in spread out and isolated suburbs that were nearly unreachable by walking or taking public transit.
“Can you imagine if this happened in Vancouver? Hundreds of thousands of people living in vibrant, close knit neighbourhoods would have lost power, and the centralized transit system that allows them to conveniently travel to see friends and families would be a complete mess. Thank god for Calgary’s sprawl,” said city planner Timothy Snider.
“The outage is tough. But this is nowhere near as bad as 2004 when there was a gasoline shortage and no one could leave their house,” he added.
