Blackout in North America: 'Serious looting' in Ottawa?

[quote]Police: ‘Serious looting’ in Ottawa

Friday, August 15, 2003 Posted: 0434 GMT (12:34 PM HKT)

OTTAWA, Canada (Reuters) – Looting broke out in Ottawa after dark Thursday, Ottawa police said, as a major power outage pitched much of Ontario into darkness.

“There is serious looting going on (in parts of Ottawa),” said Ottawa police chief Vince Bevan, adding there have been reports of break-ins, smashed windows and theft in the nation’s capital.

Ontario declared a state of emergency after the power outage which left much of Canada’s most populous province and parts of the northeastern United States in the dark. [/quote]
Hey, not trying to tease you Canadians, …ok, maybe I am, but I thought this kind of things only happens in Philippines, Indonesia, Iraq, etc., but Ottawa? Ottawa seems to be a nice and safe city, and people there are nice too!!!

I’m sure it was all caused by Filipino-Canadians, Iraqi-Canadians, Indonesian-Canadians and American-Canadians.

I’m surprised there wasn’t looting and a wave of other crimes in U.S. cities affected by the blackout. I’m sure that’d happen in a lot of U.K. cities and towns in such a situation, and probably around most of Europe as well.

I wouldn’t like to have to walk alone through any blacked-out part of an inner-city area anywhere in the Western world on a dark night – there are lots of nasty lowlifes in all such places who would take advantage of the darkness to go on a binge of robbery, rape and gratuitous assault .

After the Canucks lost to the Rangers in 94 (with 2-3 controversial referee calls), the ‘nice’ town of Vancouver looted stores and rioted. I guess this is what happens when Canadians drink too much and lose their source of pride, hockey, to Americans (although the Rangers at that time had many Canadians on board I think)

Hmmm, I wonder if it has to do anything with gun availability. After all, how likely are you to come up against a heavily-armed shop or home owner in Canada or the U.K. as compared to the U.S.?

True. But then again you have to understand the extreme temptations that Americans never face. What would you do if you and our buddies were standing in front of an unguarded beaver pelt shop in the middle of a blackout??? :laughing:

I don’t know. Are those beavers covered in maple syrup?

:laughing: :laughing: Would you prefer whipped cream?

A different kind of beaver and I’d be in there like a shot.

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DOH!
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Looks like the Canadian government isn’t sure what happened…other than it’s America’s fault. :unamused: Read the whole story and see the bias. What a bunch of maroons. I figure it was probably one of those pesky beavers chewing down a maple tree that knocked down a powerline. :laughing:

From the Canadian Broadcast Corporation:

Canada, U.S. exchange blame for outage

Last Updated Fri, 15 Aug 2003 4:27:35
TORONTO - Canadian and U.S. officials are blaming each other for the massive blackout that struck the Northeast U.S. and Ontario on Thursday.

Initially, Ottawa said the failure had occurred when lightning struck a power plant in the Niagara region on the American side of the border.

The Ontario government later said a fire at a Niagara power plant in New York had caused the blackout.

Ottawa later said the fire had taken place at a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.

Later, Canadian Defence Minister John McCallum stated only that the U.S. section of a shared power grid was the source of the problem.
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Canadians were responsible for a similar blackout in 1965. Investigators determined the cause was a single faulty relay at the Sir Adam Beck Station no. 2 in Ontario.

cbc.ca/stories/2003/08/15/bl … lame030815

“Blame Canada!”

It’s amusing to know that Canada can pull the plug on New York and plunge swathes of the USA into darkness ! I don’t know why they haven’t done it before.

Maoman here, reporting from the scene.

Chaos, chaos, everywhere. Canadians were heard muttering under their collective breath while they politely queued at intersections and yielded at regular intervals to crossing traffic. Frantic mothers had to take roasts out of the oven and make sandwiches instead. And this reporter suffered the agony of having to go outside and play tennis in the sweltering 28 degree heat under a blinding blue sky and then recover from the stresses of the day in an unheated swimming pool that couldn’t have been over 22 degrees. My God! Oh the humanity!

We have heard unconfirmed reports of people taking meat out of their freezers and barbecuing them on the grill, in lieu of their normal stovetop fare. And last night, residents across Ontario were treated to the unsettlling spectre of a cloudless night sky sparkling with stars in a brilliance that hasn’t been seen since before the advent of public electricity. Nervous residents went to bed before midnight, unable to watch tv or access the internet. And in a sick, twisted quirk of fate, people turned to their partners and embarked on a nationwide love-making spree. (We have confirmed reports of this!) :wink:

Fortunately, the horror is over, at least for this reporter, for the lights went back on last night at 2:00 am, after a horrifying 9 hour absence of civilization. This is Maoman, reporting poolside, from a shocked but recovering nation. We are grateful for your thoughts and prayers.

Sounds horrible Maoman! We hear there are rampaging beavers everywhere. You had better escape while you still have time and high-tail it back to Taiwan. :slight_smile:

Gee, they never mentioned how many looters there were. What maybe 20 or 30? Sounds like something comparable to the LA riots I and II, or how about Chicago 1968, or for sports fans how about after Dallas won the Superbowl. I’m sure looting Canadian style involved some drunk guys throwing a rock, or a beaver for you simpletons, through a beer store window, just to get some summer refreshment!

I just knew, somehow the Brits were behind it all. Perfidious Albion!

British utility owns failed power grid

The New York power grid, which collapsed, plunging millions of Americans into darkness, is owned by the British utility National Grid Transco.

Shares in the company fell sharply in early trading yesterday as fears mounted that the blackout across the Niagara Mohawk transmission system would leave National Grid Transco facing multimillion-dollar compensation claims.

National Grid bought Niagara Mohawk for $9bn (