Canada Storms/tornadoes leave 150,000 without power
Pastor Dale Morgan
Storms and tornadoes leave 150,000 without power*
Updated Aug. 4 2006 11:51 PM ET
CTV.ca News
Ontario residents heading to cottage country for the long weekend may
find that the only light they have will be from a campfire, after a
severe weather system battered the province Wednesday night, cutting
power to hundreds of thousands of homes.
By morning more than 100,000 Hydro One customers still had no
electricity. The utility struggled through the night to restore power to
about 150,000 customers who were initially cut off by the storm.
"The current that's down is one of our critical circuits feeding from
the north," Hydro One spokesman Hugh Crockett told CTV News at the site
of a Hydro One tower in central Ontario.
The tower is a key conduit on the provincial power grid.
"It's a 500,000-volt tower line," Crocket said.
Barrie, Bracebridge, Huntsville, Penetanguishene, Orillia, Minden and
Tweed received the most severe weather, Hydro One spokeswoman Enza
Cancilla said.
There were also small power outages in some southwestern Ontario cities.
Efforts to restore electricity to everyone are expected to continue
through the weekend.
The severe weather in Ontario follows a vicious storm that ripped
through Quebec Tuesday that left hundreds of thousands of Quebecers
without power and is being blamed for two deaths.
One man died after the violent storms caused a tree to fall on a car,
crushing the 28-year-old motorist inside.
The other man was struck by lightning.
In Boisbriand, Que., Mary Visnyai, 80, said she has had no power for two
days and most of her food has gone bad.
"They should pay for what we're losing," she told CTV News.
Without electricity, a popular summer day camp for young hockey players
and skaters has shut down in Rosemere, Que.
"We couldn't hold the day camp because there are no lights," day camp
monitor Catherine Goudie told CTV News. "So they all had to go back home."
The intense storms moved west from Quebec and swept through southern
Ontario Wednesday evening. Lighting, gusty downpours, tornadoes near
Guelph and Combermere, left a wake downed trees and power lines and
flooded streets across the province.
The violent storm stretched from Lake Huron east through Orangeville,
Newmarket and all the way to the Ottawa area.
The twister that touched down in Guelph left no damage behind, but the
Combermere funnel left behind a scene of "total devastation," according
to Environment Canada investigators. They said it is possible to walk a
great distance without actually touching the ground because of the
debris covering the area.
Residents in eastern Ontario say they feel like they're in a war zone.
Winds of up to 160 kilometres an hour even pushed a train off the tracks.
"I watched it happen," a resident told CTV News. "It just slowly went
through the trees and then the two cars slowly left the track and there
they were."
The tornado was described as an F-1 twister by meteorologist Geoff
Coulson, meaning the winds were between 120 and 170 km/h.
"It was like a train whistle coming in and then it got so loud, and then
it just went bam -- and all these matchsticks started cracking," a
resident told CTV News. "Things were blowing in and breaking windows."
Cars and camper trailers were reportedly crushed by the twister, but no
one was hurt.
The storm hit the Greater Toronto Area at 9:15 p.m., causing damage to a
number of homes.
The high winds ripped four sections of a roof off a house near Yonge
Street and Davis Drive.
Central York fire crews helped the homeowners cover the roof to protect
it from water damage.
West of Toronto, a trained weather spotter reported a tornado in the
Highway 401 and Highway 6 area at 3:20 p.m., Environment Canada said.
There were no reports of tornado damage there.
Emergency crews were busy in rural Peterborough after winds up to 120
km/h gusted through the region.
The village of Combermere, south of Barry's Bay, declared a state of
emergency after the storm destroyed a Home Hardware store.
The storm also wreaked havoc in the Ottawa area, downing hydro poles and
stranding boaters in the Ottawa River.
In Hagersville, near Hamilton, the high winds knocked over a barn that
in turn crushed a vacant motorhome.
With a report by CTV's David Akin and files from The Canadian Press