2003

2003: Toronto. The Blackout and another Arrest.

In June 2003 I had arrived in Toronto to start discussions with an old friend Ed Barbeau on ICMI Study 16, on my way to fulfil a speaking invitation at the University of Waterloo. Ed and I had finished that but I did not get to that because Lois was identified with breast cancer and I had to return home. I cancelled July and August attendances at Olympiads but was to be awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Bulgaria and was to award as WFNMC President an Erdos Award in Belgrade. But the airline would not change my round the world ticket and said I had to spend one night in North America rather than let me fly home from Serbia. (I had been going to attend IOI in the US but cancelled.)

So I arranged to spend that night in Toronto, where at least Ed and I could do something useful. I had arrived in Toronto during the afternoon of 13 August and we had discussions over dinner. We would meet again the following morning and I would go to the airport in the afternoon. I was not to know in a place like this what was to follow. This is from my diary, starting at breakfast the following morning.

I would note that I have probably encountered more frustrating experiences, such as in 1976 when Lois and I missed a plane out of Egypt but this was probably more unusual.

Thursday 14 August 2003 Toronto

I wake up form my last hotel sleep before arriving home and feel very refreshed. Breakfast was great. With the Canadian eggs, bacon and home fries it is like being back home. Here is the view from the room in this hotel on West Bloor Street.

At 0900 Ed arrived. He had rewritten the discussion document and I wasn’t clear on its structure. We went through it bit by bit. He convinced me he had it right. We did discuss a lot of detail about the agenda and other arrangements for the November meeting in Italy and it was indeed useful that we could be together. We had a coffee downstairs and he left.

I checked out and took a cab down to the airport. The flight, being domestic, is from terminal 2, a very long terminal. To check in for Vancouver you have to check in at a special Vancouver room at the left hand end, as you face it. Then you have to walk the kilometre or two to the other end. Security is there. It is slow, but careful and polite. I have a couple of hours still before boarding, so spend much of that in the lounge, adding a few chapters to the Bulgaria book or watching the American PGA, where two Australians, Pampling and Baddeley, are in the top four (with Weir the Canadian and Mikkelson). I go out to Gate 211 giving myself plenty of time. The flight is scheduled for 1615 but they haven’t started. At 1600 they start, but there is only one machine and it is slow, Another guy, who seems a bit stupid, goes out to check the IDs in advance. At 1610 about two thirds of the plans is boarded.

Then ... the power goes out.

Now follows a major period of time in which the authorities are shell-shocked. It is a situation for which they are not prepared. There is no corporate policy. It brings out different attitudes. You see staff in a crisis who retreat and do not want to know about it. There are those who dutifully plod on. There are those who think it is their duty to look as though they are helping even though there is nothing they can do. There are those who look for every opportunity to be pro-active, like the baggage handlers. And then there are the panic merchants, who often in contrast to the few announcements of the company, go around screaming “you must go home”, even though this turns out to be against the customers’ better interests.

I have recently seen what happens, albeit on a small scale, in the back blocks of Bulgaria, where power was immediately restored by local generators. But fifteen minutes later I start to get a bit anxious as my connection is not super-generous. About 1645 they announce the power is out in the whole city. A bit later they say the power is also out in New York, Boston and Philadelphia. All off these airports are closed. Then they say this airport is closed for the night. Our luggage is safe if we leave it and we should go home. But if we do want it, it is coming out on belt C26. We are also given a number to call to find out our re-scheduled flight.

There are tens of thousands of people stuck here now. The staff have no way of dealing with it. Someone says a New York power station is on fire. Someone else says lightning struck a transformer at Niagara. One can’t help but wonder if we are not caught in the wash of some sort of terrorist attack.

I have nowhere to go. Everything is closed. I go downstairs to look for my luggage. It is impossible to get near the belts and it seems the luggage could be on any belt in Halls C or D. I look everywhere but can’t see anything. In fact whereas it is still light outside these baggage halls are very dark and the belts have ceased functioning. Baggage is being brought in by hand and stacked in spare space. One guy goes around shouting that nothing more is happening and we should all go home, not that many of us have somewhere to go to. Our baggage will be safe, he says, but we can come back tomorrow or the next day to retrieve it if we like. I go outside for fresh air and then look for a hotel. It is impossible. There are long queues for every public phone and every hotel phone. Outside there are long queues but no transport.

I finally find a phone at the furthest end of the terminal. It appears none of them work on the credit card. I manage to buy a $20 phone card. This does not work any better.

I go back to the baggage halls. It is dark and still seems hopeless. Eventually a baggage handler stands up and announces that AC113 baggage has been found and will be deposited in a few minutes at gate 30. I go to gate 30 and people have gathered. They make an arrangement where we form a chain gang and my case emerges.

I take the case with me for another attempt at accommodation. The phones have not improved. If I find a phone it only dials the first two digits then cuts out. It must be due to a local log jam. The people who have spoken to someone, as it emerges, have dialled out of Toronto. Then I work out the hotel phones are working as long as you dial the real number rather than the coded ones on the screen. I try many and they are either not answering or engaged. Finally I get an answer. The Grand Downtown has two rooms left. I grab one. Now I have to get there. All over the airport now people have found any available square metre to sleep, either in the building or out on the footpaths. There are no taxis. They have run out of gas and are not operating. There are a few people waiting for limos. I manage to share one with a guy going downtown. This guy had been in his plane for an earlier flight for Newark.

I get to the Downtown. Their keys have to be recoded floor by floor. They tell me to have a free drink while they code my floor. Eventually they have the key. I press the elevator button. They tell me the elevators don’t work. I will have to walk up the whole 14 floors. The valet offers to carry my case. I can’t wish that on him. I tell him I’ll call if I need it. I get up the steps eventually facilitated by the fact there is no floor 13. I get into my room and discover there is no running water and no power inside the rooms. I decide I have to go downstairs once again for an attempt on some water. I go down to the bar. They do not have bottled water but they give me three small foam cups, as much as I can carry.

I get up and phone Clarice. She may be able to ring Qantas and look at the Air Canada computer. It is impossible to find out directly. She rings back 20 minutes later and all they can see is the plane I was supposed to be on. They had rung Air Canada who told Qantas we were all billeted.

I fall asleep.

Friday 15 August 2003 Toronto Vancouver Honolulu

I am woken by the restoration of power at 0520. I go to the elevators which are now working and bring up my case, shower and check out. By 0830 I am back at the airport, find myself in the only short queue at the airport, with a proactive and sharp attendant and am checked in on an 0845 to Vancouver with connection tonight to Sydney.

It seems OK. At 0815 though I am told all flights before 1000 are cancelled as there is not enough power for the pilots to do the weight checks. I am recycled back downstairs to pick up my luggage again. I can’t find the stairs to the baggage hall, am directed by Air Canada staff to go back and I go down some stairs where directed. As soon as I go through the door clicks, there is a dull siren and I realise I have gone the wrong way. I am on the tarmac. I decide to walk back around through a vehicle security gate but it is too late. A vehicle picks me up. I am arrested by an airport policeman who seems alarmed at my presence. His radio goes red hot. I am always referred to as the “AWOL” and am taken for questioning. They are particularly interested in how the security was breached. I explain where I went. After some humming and harring they want to see exactly where I had gone. We go back and I show them. The officers take note of the conditions and seem to understand how it happened. They then say I can go and return me to the baggage hall.

I go there but the airline staff say I should leave and walk all the way down to the Vancouver registration desk and get another new boarding pass. It seems hopeless. The queue moves slightly as a couple of people go away empty handed. Eventually a guy gets to the service counter and is there for eons. Then a bright spark of a woman comes and says the 1200 flight will definitely go. They open up another check-in counter and I get a boarding pass for this flight. Things are looking up again.

I go to the gate at 1130 and there is an announcement. All flights are now cancelled until 1600. I will now have to go through this process a fourth time and it increasingly looks like yet another extra night in Toronto battling this system.

I have some debate with an Air Canada official. There seem to be more of them on the ground this time. She shows me they have opened a couple of rebooking counters at the gate. I queue up for another 30 minutes and explain my problem. I wait while the operator checks the options. After 15 minutes I am offered an economy ticket on 113, the same flight I had yesterday. I don’t have much choice. All I can do is go back to the lounge and wait another three hours.

I do so, watching the golf occasionally and sometimes working, but always aware of the very shaky prospect of this flight working. I go out occasionally and check the gate. There is much crowd activity near the gate, for what would be the first flight to Vancouver, or large plane at all out of this airport in at least a day. It looks awkward. I go back into the lounge. The Air Canada attendants at the door do reprogramming for passengers and there is always a queue. They have got to know me also very well. One of them tells a passenger she has heard there is a further delay on all flights until 1800. It all seems over. She confirms it to me also. A woman from the queue comes up and has a go at me for jumping her in the queue. I tell her I am only having a conversation as I walk past but in view of this information I might go and get my stuff and join the queue. It is not the only time today this happens. Several times during the day I am accused of queue jumping by harassed passengers when I am not seeking service.

A bus to Montreal is announced. I consider this strongly. But I would have to go there before confirming this other information. You have to join the queue to find out. I do and it seems anyway Air Canada has not withdrawn the flights after 1600. This is a crazy thing. All the flights tomorrow are booked out. If I lose today I go below them on the priority list and may have to wait until at least Sunday. In Australia when a flight is cancelled those cancelled passengers get the first priority and are considered ahead of those on later flights.

I go to the gate at 1530. There is a massive crowd milling around, with much tension. There is a plane there but no staff. Still no cancellation of the flight. A couple of stewardesses turn up and walk on to the plane amid great cheers. A couple more do likewise. A staff member turns up to supervise boarding. She thinks the plane might fly but urges people to stand back. A Captain turns up. He checks that this is 115. It is actually 113. He decides he may have read his brief wrong and is convinced he should climb on board.

Announcements are made for people to exercise constraint and that many wait lists will be successful. In the end the plane departs about an hour and a quarter late, the first big plane to depart Toronto in well over a day. There had been delays because the caterers have not got sodas on board, but when this is put to a vote, the whole cabin shouts “go!”.

Captain Tex Hamilton looks around and responds by starting the engines. We take off not knowing if we will make the Australian connection, although many on board seem to hold an Australian boarding card. At least it is better to get to Vancouver.

Immediately before the plane takes off I am given a business class seat. I sit next to a nice young fellow who is travelling to Australia for a week on business class with his mother and sister as his birthday present.

The staff of Air Canada must be rattled. Their jobs are on the line and a day like this could break the back of the airline, which is right on the edge. They have forgotten to load the business class meals it seems also. All they serve is the economy class mini pizza and a packet of crackers, for a 4h 55min flight. There is not even tea or coffee.

Other than this the flight is fine. I get a good view of the mountains in Washington, around the Mount St Helens region as we near the destination. The transfer is to be tight as the plane is an hour and a half late. We land at Vancouver airport at 1910 and brace for the procedures as we are expected to sight our luggage and go through US Customs and Immigration here. I do not expect to see my case here. There has been so much chaos in Toronto I do not think they know where everything is.

There is first an airport betterment tax I am asked to pay on exit. They ask for the boarding pass for my last flight, which I have never had to have handy before. Eventually I find it and it means as a transit passenger I don’t pay the tax.

It is actually a long walk through this airport and we reach immigration first. I get into trouble as I have not filled in a green slip. I have not been given such a thing in Toronto but go and find one. The form is confusing in my frazzled state of mind. I ask the woman next door if they want the flight I am going on or the one I have come from. She says the next flight. I tear up my form and start again. I present back to the US Officer. I am in a fair bit of trouble. I answered that question the wrong way. Further the back of the form needs to be filled in. I go back again and answer the questions about drugs, firearms, etc. It is not good enough. I have still missed a part. I said that is headed “if yes”. He says I should have read on anyway. I am made to feel like a schoolboy while he completes the form for me.

Now for the luggage. As is the case with about fifteen others it is not there. The guy reports this by radio to another point in the airport. The reply is “is that all?” not bad considering the circumstances at Toronto. I am not that unhappy as I think it will turn up and its absence will save me hassles in Sydney. It is better to be without luggage at home than when going away. I go through security. Rather a difficult one this. I have some trouble. In Canada they do ask you to unbuckle your belt but you are allowed to hold it up, unlike Australia where you have to take it off completely.

I and several others get to the aircraft after a long walk, expecting the Vancouver-based passengers to be annoyed with us for holding up the plane. The luggage guy turns up to say our luggage has now been found. We must go back because there are so many of us, and he is sure the woman in charge of US Customs will be tolerant of us going back and forth again. We have to go back to the security point first. I smell a rat. I ask if we need to go through security again as we have obviously cleared once. They say of course we do. I ask if we can leave our hand luggage behind with them. Of course, the answer is no. Of course, my luggage is still not there, and of course I have an equally hard time through security again. The same guy tests my same laptop, which as I remind him he had done only a few minutes before. Well, we eventually get on the aircraft. I am told I have the wrong boarding pass and for a while think they kick me off. After them checking a few others I stay on the crowded plane.

We are on for a while. Then the Captain informs us the ground crew are having trouble moving the bridge from the aircraft. A team of experts comes on to the bridge and ponder over the situation, pressing various buttons. I think they should have turned it off and then on again. Eventually this big machine jolts into action and allows our Airbus A340 to commence the first of its two legs to Sydney.