Cheers & Jeers
Jeers: to an obvious trail of destruction. Well, as more and more of the winter’s now-ratty and grey snow banks vanish, it’s easy to see that the cleanup of huge snowfalls like Snowmageddon with the use of plenty of heavy equipment was not without cost. Almost everywhere in the city of St. John’s, there are broken curbs, bent signs, smashed park benches, cleaved trees, torn-up grass and even broken bridge railings. And that’s before you even get into the standard fare of potholes and the like. It’s going to be a long spring and summer of municipal infrastructure repairs — if COVID-19 actually lets up enough to give city workers a free hand to get back out and do the work. Take away lesson? It’s clearly hard to have a feathery-light touch non-stop when you’re driving a front-end loader.
Jeers: to not understanding that closed means closed. Signal Hill’s narrow trail system has been closed because of COVID-19 concerns, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped people from hiking the routes. The closure is supposed to keep people from passing too closely — especially in tight or narrow spots, like on the North Head Trail — and potentially sharing the virus in the process. There’s been some suggestion that the trail system could be turned into a one-way route, so that walkers wouldn’t have to pass by each other, but that still wouldn’t handle the problems of having slower walkers collecting bunched-up traffic behind them, let alone issues with people who don’t pay attention to the rules anyway. Let’s just find broader routes to travel, folks.
Cheers: to people doing whatever they can to help. Sharon Stone of South River has been sewing non-medical masks, which she puts in plastic bags and hangs outside her home for people to simply take if they want them. Donations are optional, but so far, the donation jar has been rocking — over $2,100 has come in, which Stone has donated to the Helping Hands food bank. (The food bank’s short on resources because of the COVID-19 shutdown of its thrift store.) Stone is truly inspirational.
Cheers: to keeping records. Well, even though lots of people are locked down, information’s still trickling out about the provincial power system. Looking at Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro’s daily supply and demand reports, you can see that the Labrador-island Link’s been operating in little fits and starts — all part of the commissioning process, probably — but more interesting (when you consider that we built Muskrat Falls because we’d desperately need more power) is that the daily reports show that, using only our existing supply, we actually have enough power to be exporting across the Maritime Link for a few days of the month. Fascinating.