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Rob Ford's Toronto

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I understand the distinction mrtinfoilsocket is making about establishing an 'official' SoE not necessarily affecting the quality of the government's response to situations like the ice storm. But it seems to me the response was not everything it could have been, and that naturally calls the decision to not declare a SoE into question. Walking around my neighborhood yesterday evening, there were still large piles of branches lying around everywhere, in the streets, on the sidewalks, in people's yards. One tree had been practically torn in half, so we're not talking about tiny, discrete, minor inconveniences that could be easily ignored. And my area was one of the lucky ones. We had power running throughout the entire ordeal. Speaking personally, it was a damn good thing for me that that was the case; I don't know anyone who'd have been capable of taking me in temporarily - and who's to say they wouldn't have been in the same boat as well, anyway? - and I'm flat broke, so I found Ford's worthless "advice" to check in at the nearest hotel to be particularly laughable. Uh, yeah, I'll just lah-de-dah over to the Ritz Carlton, and rent a penthouse suite for a week or longer, you clueless asshole. And you call me an elitist?

As for the charge that anti-Ford types would be screeching at Mayor Moron whether he called for a SoE or not: If he had responded competently, then those (hypothetical) complaints would have ended up looking petty and baseless, which would have been very much to Ford's benefit. That isn't how things are looking with what actually happened, now, is it? The fact that Wynne and Kelly apparently had to work around the "Mayor" to get anything done is in itself something of a scandal, and not a small one. The fact that Fatso pulled yet another of his disappearing acts when the ice storm was beginning its rampage does not look good, to say the least. And that Ford was treating the episode as just another opportunity for campaigning (once he'd resurfaced, that is) is in questionable taste at the absolute minimum. No, none of this looks good on Ford, and, yes, he should suffer for it.
 
John_Dee said:
I understand the distinction mrtinfoilsocket is making about establishing an 'official' SoE not necessarily affecting the quality of the government's response to situations like the ice storm. But it seems to me the response was not everything it could have been, and that naturally calls the decision to not declare a SoE into question.
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That's a great post and thank-you. I think despite the debate being waged here the last few days most of us can agree with the idea that the response was less than ideal. You did a good job summarizing that.

I also wanted to acknowledge though that some people (dt_toronto_geek for example) made some good points about official pre-established protocols having some real, tangible benefit in times of crisis. My "resource argument" aside, his post on that topic made me stop and consider the other side of the "to declare or not declare" issue.
 
TOperson said:
I just realized that Toronto never had anything like and Occupy Sandy response. Occupy Sandy did go door-to-door, checking on people, bringing food & water, helping people get to safer locations, etc. And they still have various Sandy projects going.

I wonder why nothing like that happened here. Is it because Americans know the official response will be useless, so they just get on with it, while Canadians are a bit naive about their government still? Or were things just not bad enough here to spark that kind of response? Curious.
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Sandy was a totally different league of event.
 
Jonny5 said:
Sandy was a totally different league of event.
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A person stuck in a house or apartment with no power, heat, etc, maybe with health issues or no money or whatever, who can't get their needs met on their own - it's the same difference whether they're in Far Rockaway or Scarborough. There must be at least a few thousand people in Toronto in this situation. What has happened to them? Probably no one knows. It's not out of the question that a few bodies will be found in the next few weeks.
 
Jimmi T said:
So have you guys ever heard the story behind Ford calling Gloria Luby a waste of skin? You might recall Ford saying Luby accused him of stealing a statue from the front of her house. It stems back to when Rob first ran for council against her and lost. During the election someone stole this big dog statue she had in front of her house. Then she receives a videotape of guys in masks standing behind the statue holding guns and warning her to drop out of the election or else. The family to this day is convinced Ford had some of his friends pull it off, while Ford obviously aggressively denies it. From what I've seen, the more animated and aggressive Rob is with his denials the more likely it is that he's lying haha.
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Interesting.
Here's a Star article from 2005 about it: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2005/07/20/councillors_square_off_in_a_verbal_slugfest.html

"Ford yelled that Lindsay Luby had accused his family of being thieves: "That's slander.""
"Ford demanded an apology from Lindsay Luby for derogatory comments he said she made about his family. "She accused us of stealing something three years ago off her front porch, which we never did, " Ford said. "She called my family a jerk, called me a jerk, told me to shut up. I'm just not going to sit there and take it. I'm going to stick up for my family. We're not thieves. We're not jerks.""
 
RoFo can't do the right thing even when he tries to...
He's called the council meeting that Josh Matlow was asking for, to formally request the assistance money, but he wants to hold it Jan 10.

From http://www.mah.gov.on.ca/Page1579.aspx#provincial

4. HOW ODRAP WORKS

Making a request for a disaster declaration for public and private assistance

The Minister is authorized to declare a “disaster area” for the purposes of ODRAP.

To make a request, municipal council must adopt a resolution and forward it to the Minister within 14 working days of the onset of the disaster.
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bold is mine, but that meeting needs to be this week or it's too late.

OR I NEED MORE COFFEE. Working days with holidays and all...never mind. Friday the 10th is the 13th day.
 
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TOperson said:
A person stuck in a house or apartment with no power, heat, etc, maybe with health issues or no money or whatever, who can't get their needs met on their own - it's the same difference whether they're in Far Rockaway or Scarborough. There must be at least a few thousand people in Toronto in this situation. What has happened to them? Probably no one knows. It's not out of the question that a few bodies will be found in the next few weeks.
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Sandy destroyed thousands of houses. Entire neighbourhoods, like Far Rockaway, were wiped out of existence. Millions lost power for days. Gas stations ran out of gasoline. Grocery stores had no food. Tens of billions in unisured damage.

You asked if people here didn't mobilise in the same fashion because it wasn't as bad, and that's why. This storm wasn't anything comparable. Not even remotely similar.
 
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Jonny5 said:
Sandy destroyed thousands of houses. Entire neighbourhoods, like Far Rockaway, were wiped out of existence. Millions lost power for days. Gas stations ran out of gasoline. Grocery stores had no food. Tens of billions in unisured damage.

You asked if people here didn't mobilise in the same fashion because it wasn't as bad, and that's why. This storm wasn't anything comparable. Not even remotely similar.
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Sandy was bigger and destroyed more stuff - DUH. Really, do you think that if I know about Occupy Sandy I somehow don't know the extent of Sandy's damage?

You totally missed my point - that it doesn't matter how big or small the event is, a person at risk is still at risk.
 
My apologies if this has already been mentioned.

I was watching CP24 at 5PM today. A spokesperson from Hydro seemed to indicate that a "customer" is counted as an account. ie: An apartment building or condo with only one meter is counted as only one customer.

She did not clarify if residential or commercial customer outages are reported any differently.
 
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casita said:
My apologies if this has already been mentioned.

I was watching CP24 at 5PM today. A spokesperson from Hydro seemed to indicate that a "customer" is counted as an account. ie: An apartment building or condo with only one meter is counted as only one customer.

She did not clarify if residential or commercial customer outages are reported any differently.
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Residential, office, commercial are each a "customer" based on their hydro meter(s). Most apartment buildings and older condos (built approximately pre-2000) are roughly "one customer", one meter with the "roughly established" 2.5 people per home put nearly one million without power last Sunday morning. Some rental buildings have smart meters which break out each resident's hydro use, most don't but are slowly moving to individual smart metres and presumably older condo buildings are too. The figures we've been getting the past two or three days are mostly free-standing homes that have to be re-wired to the hydro service, multiply that times 2.5 people per home and again, you get a rough idea how many people were affected.
 
casita said:
My apologies if this has already been mentioned.

I was watching CP24 at 5PM today. A spokesperson from Hydro seemed to indicate that a "customer" is counted as an account. ie: An apartment building or condo with only one meter is counted as only one customer.

She did not clarify if residential or commercial customer outages are reported any differently.
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Yes, a few pages back, there is a link to good article on how the media handled that part poorly. There was a lot of confusion about the numbers, and the difference between # of hydro customers and # of people affected.
I read Shelley Carrol's tweet last Sunday that it was closer to 1 million people affected and included apartment dwellers. I was confused until people here at UT set me straight. One million is 40% of Toronto's population. That is huge!
Would this be the most number of people who lost power at one time, since the Aug 03 blackout?
 
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