When your source material is the true story of a New Orleans high school basketball team on an improbable post-Katrina winning streak, producing an inspirational film should be an easy layup. Yet Hurricane Season hoists up a brick. Here, the ravaged city is merely a support player, its plight trotted out to add dramatic weight […]
Hurricane season
Posted inNews + Opinion
Getting back to business
Snack attack Monday, after the storm had cleared, Spring Garden Road was bustling with pedestrians out to catch a glimpse of the storm damage. Many of them also decided to stop for a post-Juan beverage. By Monday night, the power had come back on the south side of the street but most of the businesses […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Follow the leader
At around 2pm on Sunday afternoon I arrived at the Emergency Operations Centre over in Dartmouth. Basically I was there for the duration. I got home late Monday evening. What we did was get a feel for what was going on. We called the Emergency Measures Advisory Committee together, which consists of the deputy mayor […]
Posted inLifestyle
Getting ready in case of emergency
Hurricane Juan’s whirlwind visit to Halifax left the SuperCity stunned at the damage and struggling to clean up after one of the biggest messes in its recent history. It’s the kind of disaster that you’d think would leave emergency responders such as the police, fire department and ambulance services scrambling. They’re working overtime, to be […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Cat came back
On Monday morning, when things have finally calmed down, I decide to focus on the fence in the backyard that fell during the hurricane. We’re lucky the fence didn’t kill anyone, for it was broken before Sunday’s storm. Most things half-broken then broke completely. Including, it turns out, my relations with the dogs living on […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
When a tree falls
Considering the size and weight, the oak tree that fell on my neighbour’s house at the height of Hurricane Juan landed softly, settling on the roof and bending gutters, but causing little other destruction. My neighbour is a handy-man type of guy, and the gutters will be repaired and replaced in a short Saturday afternoon. […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Down at the Khyber
Tuesday morning I was helping set up The Coast’s emergency office, and there were computer problems. We’d taken over the Khyber Digital Media Centre, lugging a few computers from our powerless north end office to join this electric oasis on Barrington Street, but the two systems clashed. While I maxed out my editor skills trying […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Motel hell
When the world wasn’t lit so well by giant tungsten candles and strobing halogen fireflies the neon sign of a motel would really stand out. You could be coming into town, late on the road, tired, grimey, hungry. There it would be, warming the night sky with the colours of fireworks, there would be the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Night in black
Juan is on everyone’s minds at my local watering hole Sunday afternoon. The bartender clearly isn’t concerned. “What does Halifax know about storms, anyway?” he guffaws through his Cape Breton accent. “The Khyber isn’t open tonight, is it?” asks a neighbour. “Of course it is,” I reply. “Tonight’s the Johnny Cash tribute. I’m performing.” Downtown, […]