Saturday and Sunday brought severe storms and bad weather, which caused around 300,000 people in Canada to lose power. Around Saturday afternoon, a bad thunderstorm rolled in, causing heavy rain and winds that reached up to 99 mph. As the day went on, temperatures declined, and it rolled into Sunday, the rain became ice and hail, causing damage to power boxes and poles. Causing massive power outages, affecting the area of Ottawa along with parts of Quebec and Ontario.
The storm was classified as a “Bomb Cyclone.” Due to the severe winds and the ice, multiple trees and poles were damaged and fell down. The leading cause of the power outage was that tree branches had a severe amount of ice, causing them to get stuck and whaged in the power lines. The other risk that arises to concern is flooding from all the ice melting.
Utility provider Alectra has stated that more than 35,000 people lost power having to be primarily in Barrie, a town north of Toronto. They hope to bring power back soon and have everything running again by Monday. “Progress has been slow due to the ice on the lines, but all available resources have been deployed,” said Alectra on Sunday.
As of Thursday afternoon going into Friday, Hydro One, a utility provider, said 175,000 were still left without power. Hydro One has continued to state that they have all available resources deployed around the clock, along with other utility providers. The storm this weekend did severe damage to cities like Orillia and Peterborough, along another storm system is coming through on Thursday, causing additional power outages and hindering the work that was done.
Premier Doug Ford said Thursday he plans to visit areas that were severely hit and that have prolonged power outages and make up a plan to help and bring morale back up. “It’s heartbreaking,” Ford told reporters at Queen’s Park on Thursday morning. “We’re working full out again, we have the teams out there from emergency management, the Ontario Corps, warming centres, foods brought in.”
Residents have started to use generators for power, but have talked about how it is very expensive and still cold. Kaylene Sutton has stated that her house has not been warmer than 16.1 °C or 61 degrees Fahrenheit. She and her husband have been using a small generator to power their freezer, fridge, and space heater, but she said it’s very expensive and has to be refilled after six hours. “It’s very expensive,” Sutton said. “A lot of gas. A lot of inconvenience. A lot of cold nights.” Other residents have spoken about how the ice storms have been the worst thing they’ve seen.
The weekend storm is the most severe weather event the utility said it’s faced since the ice storm of 1988. All utility providers have said they hope to have all power back and functional by Sunday, with no more storms coming and no more setbacks. Premier Ford said they have all the resources available and are doing all they can to restore power.
