Large Fierce Mammal

Nova Scotia is currently swaying like a drunken sailor under an assortment of winter storm warnings including snowfall warning, heavy rainfall warning, extreme wind warning, and storm surge warning. Mostly rain in our area, falling on frozen ground leading to nearly instant ice formation on paved surfaces. Winds are expected to increase in intensity through the day and overnight with gusts forecast to be between 100 and 140 kilometers per hour. Heavy rain is also expected with predicted high volume runoff over frozen ground..

Caught flat footed by the Christmas Day wind storm that included mere 110 kilometer per hour winds and left some areas off grid for nearly a week, Nova Scotia Power announced it has mobilized 1000 people, including crews from New Brunswick and Quebec, to address outages this time — allegedly the largest mobilization the the company’s history. Notwithstanding that, they are warning the customers should be prepared to be without power “through the weekend”.

As of a few minutes ago, the NSP outage map shows 17,000 addresses without power, with causes listed in the majority as “bad conditions”, the next greatest number as “salt contamination”, about a dozen as “poorly seasoned”, three as “ennui”, and one simply as “nap time”.

Here’s a segment from the 1928 Buster Keaton film Steamboat Bill, Jr. that should give you an idea of current conditions, albeit a little dryer than real life.