That wasn't so bad, was it?

If you'll recall I reminded some of the residents of southern Ontario to have their slickers nearby as the remnants of Hurricane Ike raced through the region. It turns out that Ike left a rather ugly swath of destruction and dropped heavy rain in its path causing flooding in most US states along the route. In fact, the storm surge caused by Ike was worse in some areas than what Gustav produced.

Compare what happened in Canada (up to this point)

TORONTO — More than 25-thousand customers are without electricity Monday morning across Ontario after a night of rain and gusting winds.

Worst-hit areas include Alliston, Peterborough and Bancroft, while Hydro One isn't reporting any outages in some southwestern regions. In Fenelon Falls, more than 5,300 customers are affected by outages.

Service isn't expected to be restored until later in the day.

with what happened on the Bolivar Peninsula in Texas

The Bolivar Peninsula is a barrier island-like finger of land east of Galveston Island; between the two is the entrance to Galveston Bay. It is normally reached by ferry from Galveston or via the rice-farming country east of Galveston Bay, where on Sunday drowned cattle were half-buried in piles of debris along the gravel roads.

About 3,800 people live on the peninsula. Many residents who refused to evacuate were “hard headed,” Mr. Isaacks said, believing they could ride out this storm much as they had previous ones, and refusing last-ditch pleas to leave. He said that an estimated 500 residents had stayed behind, but that the Coast Guard had flown some of those people to land.

Many people refused to accept the warnings of the US National Weather Service which had issued a pronouncement of "certain death" to those who ignored evacuation orders.

One middle-aged man was washed from his home on Crystal Beach all the way to the mainland, where he was spotted by National Guard troops in a helicopter and picked up.

So, if you're in southern Ontario, or Quebec, or Labrador suffering from a severe rinsing and cold blow-dry, keep in mind that the third most costly North American hurricane hit in history just barely touched.

Things should quieten down for at least a week now. Unless it doesn't.