| Ontario residents scrambled to put their lives back
in order Wednewday as winds diminished and rain faltered after the season's
first big storm.
The weather caused sporadic power outages from Fort Frances in the north-west to Belleville and Cobden in the east, north to Timmins and south to Simcoe. Hydro spokesman Terry Young said at the height of the storm, about 33,000 customers were without power. Some crews had a hard time getting to affected areas because the roads were inaccessible. He said about 7,000 customers scattered near Georgian Bay would not have power until later today. "Our crews have been hampered by continuing high winds," Young said. "When people see the weather there's an appreciation of why there is that outage." He said it was too early to estimate the cost of restoring the damage. In Sarnia, local roofers were besieged with calls from homeowners needing their shingles repaired. "We're going nuts," said one receptionist. Ernie Silvester of Brigden awoke tofind a century-old pine tree sprawled across the front yard and a three-metre crater in the ground. |
"I didn't hear a thing. It must have went
over gently," he said.
The provincial police closed the Burlington Skyway on Wednesday over concerns high winds on the bridge would cause accidents. Police called the impact on area traffic "severe." Neither was Quebec spared the storm, nor the power outages. About 23,000 Hydro-Quebec customers were plunged into darkness early Wednesday, after the violent winds and heavy rains swept through the southwest of the province. Trees were uprooted, letter boxes and phone booths were thrown to the ground and campaign posters for the upcoming provincial election were carried away by the wind. Hydro workers were busy returning thrings to normal and the number of outages had dropped to 4,000 by Wednesday evening. And while the wind was howling through Sault St. Marie, about 100 people gathered at Whitefish Point Museum Tuesday for the annual memorial service in honour of the 29 crew members who went down with the Edmund Fitzgerald on Nov. 10, 1975. |