High winds cause damage, knock out power around the GTA

CP24.com
Oct. 15, 2017
By Chris Fox

Crews around the GTA are working to restore power and clean up damage after high winds tore through the region, bringing down branches, whipping rain and tossing debris.

Toronto Hydro said late Sunday that 6,000 customers remain without power in scattered outages across the city, down from 25,000 customers who were without power earlier Sunday.

"We have all hands on deck at Toronto Hydro," spokesperson Mallory Cunnington told CP24 Sunday night. "We've called in extra crews and we have every available crew working in the city that we have available to us."

Cunnington said it's taking crews a while to restore power because of all the potentially dangerous situations that have to be attended to first and advised that some people may not get power back until Monday morning.

"Crews have made some progress. We still have a lot of work ahead of us and crews will work overnight to restore power," she said. "Right now our priority is still attending to those public safety concerns. We had about 25 downed wire calls, emergency calls and so those take first priority because they are a public safety hazard. So crews are still going through those and then we can work on restoring some of the other areas in the city."

Other utilities around the GTA also reported a number of outages and said crews are working to repair the damage.

In Vaughan, PowerStream initially said 34,000 customers were without power. Shortly after 8 p.m., the utility said 2,100 customers remain without power in Vaughan. The utility later said it was working to restore power to several hundred customers in several pockets around Vaughan.

The stormy weather rolled into the region at around 3 p.m. from the east. Drivers on Highway 427 reported very poor visibility, while traffic lights around the city were knocked offline as well.

The gusty weather arrived as the GTA sat under a wind warning from Environment Canada.

Environment Canada said a cold front in the region could bring gusts of up to 90 km/h.

The warning said southwest wind gusts of 70 to 80 km/h would likely to be felt ahead of the arrival of the front. The warning said that there could then be "a brief period of wind gusts exceeding 90 km/h" once the front arrives later this afternoon.

"Damage to buildings, such as to roof shingles and windows, may occur," the warning said. "High winds may toss loose objects or cause tree branches to fall."

Environment Canada said that it only issues wind warnings when there is a "significant risk of damaging winds."

The wind warnings and special weather statements have since ended for most of southern Ontario.

In addition to the loss of power, there were a number of reports of damage around the city, with trees toppling over onto cars and some condo owners reporting that the winds ripped objects from their balconies.

No serious injuries were reported.