State of emergency remains, outages could stretch for week in Uxbridge

Devastated parts of the town are littered with branches as crews aim to restore grid

Torontosun.com
May 24, 2022
Scott Laurie

It could be at least week before people living in some parts of storm-ravaged Uxbridge have electricity restored, and the mayor said a state of emergency will remain in place there until city officials recommend lifting it.

“There’s a lot of work to do here,” said Mayor David Barton, who toured damaged streets with Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford.

“When my fire chief tells me I should be lifting (the state of emergency), I will.”

The local power authority, Elexicon, says up to 5,000 customers in Uxbridge are without power, with some facing many more days without electricity.

“The thing that nobody wants to hear: east side for sure tomorrow -- we are hoping end of day,” said Indy Butany--DeSouza, president and CEO of Elexicon.

“West side, it’ll be a week. We will get some of it back on piece by piece, but as you get things back on, other things happen.”

A generator is allowing Bill and Norma Dolan to survive in their Dominion St. home.

They spent the day chopping branches from a 20-metre walnut tree that fell from their backyard on to a neighbour’s property.

“The whole house went black and all I heard was crashing. And I couldn’t see out of some of the windows,” said Norma.

“It was very frightening because you just didn’t know what was going on. It was not good.”

Bill said they had very little time to race for cover.

“Thirty seconds I would say. We barely made it down into the basement, and then it was over. And then we walked out here and everybody on the street was in a daze ... everybody,” said Bill.

“It was unbelievable.”

Ford, who spoke to people whose homes have been destroyed by the storm, said provincial hydro crews are pitching in to help restore power.

“We are just making sure we are pulling other people -- Hydro One workers -- out of one part of the province over to the hardest hit areas,” Ford said.

“We will be there to support any community right across the province. This is a once-in-a-life-time storm that came through Ontario.”