Being present as a catastrophe unfolds is something I’ve experienced firsthand too many times.

I’ve found myself as witness to history in many ways both personally and professionally. For instance. I was filling in on a double shift the afternoon of August 16, 2003 doing an open line talk show about new requirements for licensing in Ontario.  It was a thrilling topic-NOT and the interviewee was another nameless bureaucrat I’d have to coax something interesting out of.  Then the lights went out. Poof!

I had witnessed firsthand the so-called “Great Blackout of 1965”.  That was scary. I had fresh batteries in my transistor radio that was always tuned to CHUM Toronto, but CHUM was off the air and a radio announcer from New York City was talking about the lights out there. I tuned around slightly on the dial and heard the familiar voice of newsman Jack Dennett on CFRB saying “Okay, we don’t know what just happened, but we’re going to try and figure it out for you…” Then he chuckled and said there were no lights on anywhere he could see except at the studios of CFRB where the generators had kicked in.

Jack Dennett always struck me as the man you wanted to hear from in an emergency.  He had a weight and authority in his tone.  Something about Jack Dennett said “Everything’s gonna be all right”.

Almost 40 years later, I think I echoed every word and mannerism of Jack Dennett in the opening moments of the 2003 blackout. I even chuckled about how we would make do because not only was the power out, but the cellphones went dead. The internet went down. All radio and television was off the air with one exception: Me. Known as “the Gay Recovering Addict Guy”.

CFRB had wanted somebody openly Gay on the air for a long time before I got there.  It’s just that no one was Gay who was also on the air.  They still took their time bringing me on staff and they weren’t quite sure what I’d be able to do other than talk about recovery from addiction.

So, it was a surprise I could speak knowledgably about municipal politics and nonsense topics like “Are there too many squirrels in Downtown Toronto”.  I nixed the last one, but it still made air with another host.

Currently there was a rare opening for a full-time show host on The Nightside 11pm – 2 am and I wanted that spot.  My Program Director Steve Kowch told me “Not a chance and less than a hope.”  It was such a discouraging conversation that I never brought the topic up again.

Now fate had handed me a solo with the whole city of Toronto. I was the only voice on the air.

20 minutes in my producer Iain Grant came in to the studio on a break and said “The phones are out.  All the other media are off the air. You’re it!”  He gleefully pointed at me while I replied “Do you think I should say my name more often?”

By now Steve Kowch had taken control of the studio and cued me in my headset to cut to a newsman, then bring it back because we were going to pick up CBS Radio from New York. 

The network came on with the news about the extent of the blackout down the East Coast then turned to radio newspeople around the CBS News Building in New York.

I opened my mike and cut off the network feed.  We could do better with our own man on the street interviews and we cared about Toronto.

As it became apparent that the lights weren’t coming back anytime soon I started making suggestion for Barbeque Dinner.  How to make coffee without electricity.  Commending people who volunteered to direct traffic since the traffic lights weren’t working anymore.  I also urged people to lend their friends money if possible because all credit cards and ATM’s were dead.
Next came “How to get home?”  A huge population travel by subway and transit.  Today drivers were urged to car pool their friends home. Then I was called into the newsroom and from the windows overlooking Yonge Street came the largest mass of people I’ve ever seen in my life.  People with no way home and no subway were walking up the street in the hundreds of thousands.

The front line view from the studio was amazing.  There were bulletins crossing my desk talking about “possible terrorism” and “unknown perpetrators” and I ignored them. 

The whole thing ended up having been caused by an overloaded power line in Ohio that failed on a hot summer afternoon.

That day made my name a household word in Toronto which is very hard to do in this day and age.  It turned out that people with car radios tuned to News Talk 1010 were blasting my voice at high volume everywhere in town.  It was a “Special Edition” of my trademark “People Helping People” in the time of an emergency.

I’d done an overlong shift by the time 6 o’clock rolled round, but Steve Kowch was all praise.  “Please stay for another hour…You’re doing a great job!”  High praise indeed!

I got through the shift and was surprised the following workday with a contract to take over the Nightside on CFRB.
 

Last edited by Mark Elliot (October 30, 2015 12:00 pm)