Annie, Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, January 5, 1998, 8:00 p.m.
It was a Monday night. We’d had one last professional day before we were supposed to go back to school after the holidays.
It was dark and I was on my way home from my friend Mélanie’s house. We’d spent the evening surfing the fabulous new World Wide Web. It was mild out, but an icy rain had been falling since the afternoon. It was freezing rain, like we often get in winter. I kept slipping and I giggled a bit to myself. I heard cracking overhead. Tree branches were bending under the weight of the ice until they almost touched the ground. It was beautiful, poetic. Branches were falling near me. But I wasn’t afraid. I’d soon be safe and warm at home. And I’d see my friends back at school the next day.
A surveyor takes measurements in preparation for the rebuilding of the transmission line.
Timeline of January 1998
January 5
10 to 20 mm of freezing rain
January 6
34 mm of freezing rain
700,000 customers without power in the Outaouais, Beauce, Montérégie and Montréal regions
Eight transmission towers collapse along Highway 20 near Drummondville
January 7
7.5 mm of freezing rain
435,000 customers without power
800 tree trimmers arrive from the United States to help out Hydro-Québec workers
January 8
23 mm of freezing rain
1,023,000 customers without power
Many high-voltage transmission lines collapse in Montérégie
3,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces arrive to help civil society organizations and Hydro-Québec
January 9
14 mm of freezing rain, for a total of 78 mm
Downtown Montréal in the dark
Montréal metro stops running
All bridges between Montréal and the South Shore closed, except the Louis-Hippolyte-Lafontaine bridge-tunnel
Montréal water filtration plants shut down due to power failure
January 10
Rain stops, intense cold and snow
1,393,000 customers without power
Rebuilding starts
Damage: 24,000 poles down, 900 steel towers and 3,000 km of lines to be rebuilt
1,250 line workers arrive from the United States to lend a hand to Hydro-Québec crews
January 11
Shelters almost at full capacity
Québec Premier Lucien Bouchard calls for solidarity among all Quebecers
Power restored to downtown Montréal, but grid still unstable
January 12
Deicing starts in downtown Montréal
100 more line crews arrive from Detroit
January 13
380,000 customers still without power
Québec government issues an order in council establishing a financial assistance program for disaster victims
Hydro-Québec logo on head office turned off at 5:00 p.m.
January 14
Only 50,000 people left without power in Montréal, but still some 350,000 in Montérégie
Temperatures continue to drop
97% of Hydro-Québec customers satisfied with handling of situation
January 15
Helicopter operation to reconnect Beauharnois generating station to Aqueduc substation and strengthen the grid
Deicing continues in downtown Montréal
January 16
Québec government and Hydro-Québec start countdown to rebuilding lines in Montérégie
January 17
256,000 customers still without power
Generators, blankets, food and firewood arrive from all over Québec
