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I t I • t i t, Orono Town Hall BOWMANVILLE LIBRARY 62 Temperance St. '1.1.04 Bowmanville, Ont. L1C 3A8 $1UU GST Included Wednesday August 20, 2003 Serving Kendal, Kirby, Leskard, Newcastle, Newtonville, Orono, Starkville and Tyrone since 1937 Historic Blackout There wasn't a loaf of bread to be had in the village by 4 p.m. Friday. Being one of the few locations in the Durham Region with power, people flocked to Orono from Ajax, Pickering, Oshawa and beyond for staples. The sudden influx of cus- "...We were water at 2 o\ and bread by 4 o'clock... ... definitely some panic buying" -- Pete Armstrong Armstrong's IGA tomers did take him by surprise surprise said Pete Armstrong, manager of Armstrong's IGA in Orono. "By 10 o'clock we were out of ice," said Armstrong on Saturday morning. morning. "We were out of water at 2 o'clock and bread by 4 o'clock." They also ran out of milk, and got very low on chips and pop. Armstrong says he definitely did see some papic buying. "One lady walked out of here with $40 of water," he said. While the grocery store had line-ups most of the day, so too, did the liquor store next door. "By 6 o'clock we sold our last case of beer," said acting acting manager Julie Price. They sold 2,000 cases of beer on Friday. "We've got an urgent call out to the beer company," said Price on Saturday morn m ing, hoping to get a supply for the weekend, that being the biggest race weekend at Mosport for the summer. A press release from Veridian Corporation, power supplier to the urban centres of Durham Region which includes the village of Orono, issued at 10:30 Friday morning morning stated, "the reasons why power was interrupted to much of Eastern Canada and Northeastern part of the United States is unclear at this time. Ninety-five per cent of Veridian customers in Ajax, Pickering and Clarington continue continue to be without power as Veridian weathers this crisis." There were pockets within the Veridian catchment zone that had their power restored by Friday morning, as there was with Hydro One, the power supplier to rural areas. Power was lost to great sections sections of Ontario and many of the north eastern states shortly after 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon-- afternoon-- the reason for which is yet undetermined. Power to the village of Orono was restored at 3:30 a.m. Friday morning till about 8:00 a.m. when it went off again. An hour later the power was back on and stayed on. Residents and businesses were askêd uf practice stringent stringent conservation measures to ensure that the small amount of capacity could be spread further. Épjjjl life! dp ijillii! p, ,, w MUvppIMr I Mike Knapp stands beside the empty bread shelves at the Orono IGA store Saturday morning. The store was inundated with customers Friday as the rest of the Region was still under a hydro blackout. One year after being named Durham Central Fair Ambassador and Rebecca Boyd can confidently quote the kind of statistics that make you worry about where your next meal is coming from. Only two thirds of Canada's farmland is in use, she says. And the number of farms is still on the decline. Ms Boyd already knew the upside of farming, having had two sets of grandparents who ran farms. She was certainly familiar with the independent lifestyle and communal spirit of farming towns. However, after a year mingling mingling with food producers and researching for various speaking speaking engagements, she's learned the more sobering farming facts, too. For one thing, breaking into farming requires a huge, almost incomparable fiancial risk, so it's no surprise the Canadian farmer is a vanishing vanishing breed. "Everybody wants to be doctors and lawyers, nobody thinks of agriculture," Ms Boyd says. The low profile afforded to farming is precisely why the Fair Ambassador program has value, she says. AMBASSADOR continued page 4 /■' III Durham Central Fair Ambassador Ambassador Rebecca Boyd