Grant Lafleche
The Standard

Staff Photo by Grant Lefleche / A metal roof belonging to a newly built airplane hangar is shown Wednesday after making a solo flight at the Niagara District Airport in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

A newly built airplane hangar took to the air Wednesday, powered by fierce winds ripping through Niagara.

Incidents of wind damage were isolated and largely limited to an overturned truck and fallen trees. Although the storm did not meet its expected ferocity, that will be little comfort to the owner of the hangar at Niagara District Airport.

Don Chambers, manager at the Niagara-on-the-Lake airport, said the hangar caught the wind because the doors have yet to be installed.

"The open side was facing the wind and it just took off," said Chambers.

The hangar, made of aluminum sheets on a wooden frame, was torn from the ground and crashed on top of a nearby storage shed. Pieces of the building were scattered 200 metres away.

Two planes in the hangar were not damaged and the cost of the ruined hangar has yet to be determined, said Chambers.

The powerful winds, reported by Environment Canada to have reached up to 70 kilometres per hour, also made driving conditions difficult.

In the afternoon, a tractor trailer was driving on the QEW south of Lyon's Creek Road in Niagara Falls when it flipped onto its side.

Ontario Provincial Police said the high winds and an improperly positioned axle pin caused the crash that shut down one lane of the highway for two hours.

OPP charged the driver, Artur Kwiatkowski of Hamilton, under the Highway Traffic Act.

Ships plying Niagara waters were delayed by the strong gales.

Jim Lelevicius, a traffic controller with the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority, said ships in Lake Erie and Lake Ontario had to drop anchor while waiting for the winds to die down. 

"There are ships moving through the (Welland) canal right now," Lelevicius said Wednesday evening.

"But the ones on the lakes aren't coming in because it's still too choppy."

Lelevicius said six vessels were parked in Lake Erie and four more were waiting off Port Weller in Lake Ontario.