Following a weekend of sun and hardly a cloud in the sky, Ontarians were walloped by a spring thunderstorm Monday. Hydro One employees have been working around the clock to restore power to thousands of homes left in the dark following the violent band of thunderstorms that ripped across the province in the evening. The intense weather, including heavy rains and winds of up to 100 km/h that lifted roofs off houses and uprooted trees, left about 17,000 customers in the dark. Crews immediately went out to restore power in the affected areas and hoped to get everyone back by Tuesday at noon. However, Hydro one admitted that some of the more remote and harder hit areas north of Toronto and east to Arnprior could be relying on backup power until Tuesday evening. Fortunately no one was seriously injured when the storm hit, but some houses under construction in Markham and Vaughan were seriously damaged. ********** I hope everyone made it though the storm last night ok. My power finally came back on at 2:30am. We only had some minor damage to a gazebo and tent trailer but a house down the street had a tree fall on it.
We got off pretty easy... just lost the crown off the light outside our front door. ; But our house is in an area that doesn't generally see the worst of most storms (weather tends to run along the Niagara Escarpment... Hamilton, Milton, just North of Toronto proper (Richmond hill, Vaughn, Markham), then down through Oshawa... we're inside that horseshoe so we get a bit of shelter). DH's work, on the other hand didn't get off easy at all. ; He was officially done work at 5:00, but was there until 9:00 on 'disaster recovery'. ; He works at Yonge & Langstaff/Royal Orchard... power lines came down across the gates of the property (actually, Yonge Street was still having serious traffic restrictions in that stretch and Yonge & Langstaff was closed... apparently 7 hydro poles were snapped, and several more were dragged off vertical by the strain).... mature (80+ year old) trees were uprooted (several landing on a main rail line, too), skylights were ripped off buildings, construction debris everywhere, they couldn't close the gates (because the downed lines were resting on them... actually burned the paint right off the gates), their security company had to have someone stay on-site all night (instead of their periodic checks), no power and no phones. ; Even when he got in this morning (7:30) they still had no power or phones and he was looking forward to the prospect of another very long day documenting and photographing damage and trying to keep business ticking along as usual with the main entrance to the property shut down. I just read in the Star that it was one of the worst hit areas in the GTA. ; The guys in the office there said the noise when the storm went through was like a freight train (generally a sound equated with tornadoes, but environment Canada are saying there's no indication a funnel cloud actually formed and/or touched down). So... he put in a 13.5 hour day at work yesterday, and has another 12 hour (estimated) day today... the poor boy's going to be about as useful as a bucket of jello tomorrow! ;
No real damage around here in the east. Lots of wind... and man-oh-man did it rain hard for a while around 11:30 last night!!! ;
