Getting Wet

I hung up the phone at about five minutes after five on Monday, July 8. I'd been talking to a colleague who works for the federal government. I'd told him I had accepted the offer to "act" in the Director's job for the Air Policy and Climate Change Branch, which position had recently and suddenly been vacated by my former boss.  

I'd said that there would be, in terms of the work my federal colleague and I did together, "very little change: Adam just did what I told him to do anyway," but I also admitted that there were many parts of the job I didn't know anything about and I felt what I called "healthy trepidation."

Then I turned around, looked out the window and saw that the skies had opened. I wanted to go to yoga, and I wondered if the heavy rain would subside in time for me to make the 5:45 class. So I waited. And waited.

The messages and lessons we get when we're kids stay with us our whole lives. "Don't get wet," was always a big one (which was odd given the other prevailing parental preoccupation with bathing). And, as I watched the rain pound down and the arms on the clock advance, I realized no matter what my destination - yoga class or home - I was going to get wet.

Very wet.

Giant agave at the Allan Gardens - must be from the rain

So I changed into my yoga duds, left my pricey work clothes hanging on the coat rack in my office and headed home. I walked the twenty yards from Ferguson Block to the corner of Wellesley and Bay and was wet to the skin.

My normal walk home from the office takes about fifteen to twenty minutes, depending on my luck with the traffic lights. I cross Bay, Yonge, Church and Jarvis Streets, cut across the Allan Gardens and then down Sherbourne Street.

July 8 was different. Bay, Yonge, Church and Jarvis streets were more rivers than roads. I was highly aware of how anxious and upset were the drivers of all those cars struggling to get home through the storm. I tried to keep my rain-filled eyes on as many of them as possible as I waded across the streets.

My shoes - nice, expensive ECCO sandals - were saturated in seconds and made comically loud squishing noises as I walked along the water-covered sidewalks.There was no point in avoiding puddles, so I didn't bother.

Normally, I shop for supper on my way home. I did this time, too. I suppose under different circumstances it would be embarrassing to enter an establishment with my hair plastered flat against my head, my shoes squishing loudly, my sight obscured by raindrop fogged glasses. But, what the hell. My money wasn't dry, but they took it anyway. I did ask for a plastic bag though.

I decided to not take my normal short cut to get to the corner of Jarvis and Carlton, and just headed east on Maitland to go straight down Jarvis Street, the five-lane highway that feeds cars from the tony northern suburbs into the downtown core. Jarvis has a gentle slope down to the lake - a path of least resistance if you like - and the amount of water flowing down it was mind-boggling. Water rushed past cars waiting at the light at Maitland Place at the level of their headlights.

I walked around rather than through the Allan Gardens with its lovely tall trees. There was still some lightning, and, while I felt luckier than the people in their cars, I didn't feel quite that lucky.

Somehow - I guess because of the care I was taking in crossing streets and the longer route - it took me almost an hour to walk the five blocks home. Bruce got me a towel when I stepped inside the door. 

We had no flooding (though the water in our back "yard" rose to within two feet of our door); we never lost power; we don't have a car so we didn't have to worry about how to get it home through flooded underpasses.

The July 8 storm dropped more water on Toronto in 3 hours than Hurricane Hazel dropped in 24 hours. Imagine that. After Hazel hurtled through town, killed eighty people, and washed away whole neighbourhoods in the Humber River valley, the provincial government of the day enacted reforms in planning law (no more building on floodplains), watershed management (it created the network of conservation authorities to manage and protect waterways in order to control flooding) and other useful things. These sensible reforms may have contributed to the fact that no one died because of the storm on July 8, 2013. 

I wonder what sensible reforms will arise this time. 

Maybe bigger boats for the Toronto Police marine unit.

Thanks for reading! Have a great week!

Karen