Yesterday the power randomly went out at our school near the end of the day. There was a distant BOOM. I didn't think too much about it, since the school sometimes loses power for short periods of time or has scheduled power outages. However, 2 hours later and the power was still out at school. Things got pretty sweaty - you can imagine no AC or fans in tropical temperatures!
Later, we found out that the power outage wasn't just at our school or in the school's neighbourhood. Driving home, many lights were out. Businesses were closed, lights off, doors open, and people standing around outside fanning themselves. Even downtown the power was out in some places!
Luckily when we arrived home the power was just coming back on (right after we climbed all the stairs to the 6th floor since the elevator wasn't functioning). I later found out that the power outage was widescale... it affected lots of areas in the city, as well as several of Vietnam's southern provinces!
The reason for the outage was a huge 10 metre tree falling from a crane onto a power line. That was enough to knock out power to millions of people! Reminded me a bit of when there was that big power outage in the summer of 2003. Everyone remembers where they were when that happened... I was in Subway ordering sandwiches with the fam in Cornwall on route to our trip to PEI. Crazy!!! The blackout yesterday wasn't nearly as huge as the one in 2003, but it did still show us how much we rely on electricity. While it did affect my life, I'm sure some people that live on the Mekong River nearby didn't even notice since many homes don't have electricity there anyway. For us, it's "No TV? No internet? No aircon?" but for them it's just another day...
Later, we found out that the power outage wasn't just at our school or in the school's neighbourhood. Driving home, many lights were out. Businesses were closed, lights off, doors open, and people standing around outside fanning themselves. Even downtown the power was out in some places!
Luckily when we arrived home the power was just coming back on (right after we climbed all the stairs to the 6th floor since the elevator wasn't functioning). I later found out that the power outage was widescale... it affected lots of areas in the city, as well as several of Vietnam's southern provinces!
The reason for the outage was a huge 10 metre tree falling from a crane onto a power line. That was enough to knock out power to millions of people! Reminded me a bit of when there was that big power outage in the summer of 2003. Everyone remembers where they were when that happened... I was in Subway ordering sandwiches with the fam in Cornwall on route to our trip to PEI. Crazy!!! The blackout yesterday wasn't nearly as huge as the one in 2003, but it did still show us how much we rely on electricity. While it did affect my life, I'm sure some people that live on the Mekong River nearby didn't even notice since many homes don't have electricity there anyway. For us, it's "No TV? No internet? No aircon?" but for them it's just another day...
THAT DOES NOT SOUND PLEASANT!I CANNOT IMAGINE NO AC IN TROPICAL TEMPS....luckily, things resolved themselves!
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