People, most of whom weren't affected by the blackout, are going "What's the big deal? People didn't have electricity for centuries!"

It wasn't that big a deal, mostly a minor inconvenience for me personally, but a few thoughts:

- My stove is electric. Before they had stoves people would use fire to cook, but I don't have any safe place to make a fire because my building was built decades after stoves were invented, so the ability to safely make a fire would be a luxury.
- I live on the 14th floor. Before the invention of the elevator, buildings weren't more than 6 storeys tall. I am quite capable of climbing 14 flights of stairs, but the fact that pre-elevator buildings were never this tall is testament to the fact that it isn't reasonable to do so every day.
- My local grocery stores are closed because their register and inventory systems are all electronic. Not all stores can just spontaneously switch back to a manual register like they had before electricity.
- Same thing with banks. Even if the branch were open, they can't process my withdrawl manually.
- Water is pumped by electric pumps. Before the existence of this sort of system there were hand pumps, springs, and wells. However, I'm not likely to find a well in midtown Toronto.

PS: Mayor Mel: how can you tell all the businesses to close, and then tell everyone to go buy a flashlight all in the same breath?