26. April 2009 by admin.

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TORONTO — In addition to breaking trees and hydro poles a brief yet blustery thunderstorm that made its way across southern Ontario on Saturday also broke at least one record.

“We did have very strong wind gusts as a result of this thunderstorm line that went through,” Environment Canada meteorologist Sarah Wong said Sunday.

“At Toronto Pearson Airport we had a recorded gust of 115 kilometres per hour, and that was the strongest wind gust reported since January 1978.”

Reports of funnel clouds came in from areas such as Windsor, Ont., where the roof was ripped off a Canadian Union of Public Employees building, and from Aylmer, Que., where backup dispatchers had to be sent to deal with the close to 700 emergency calls.

Wong said the sightings are unofficial, and the agency doesn’t investigate unless there is confirmed evidence of large areas of damage.

“These were straight-line winds that caused the damage,” Wong said. “Most in the 100 kilometre per hour range.”

In Toronto a man was rushed to hospital with serious head injuries after he was struck by an 18-kilogram sign that winds sent flying through the air.

Hydro One crews worked through most of Saturday night and into Sunday morning to restore power after 44,000 customers were left in the dark.

As of late Sunday afternoon more than 10,000 customers were still without power.

“The most damage was right at the start of the storm when the storm ran through southwestern Ontario in areas like Listowel, Sarnia, and Clinton,” said Hydro One spokesman Corey Labatt.

Residents of Listowel, one hour north of Stratford, could be in the dark until as late as Tuesday evening.

“That’s sort of the worst-case scenario,” Labatt said.

In nearby Drayton, a boil-water advisory was issued for people using the municipal water system.

Officials say the system lost pressure thanks to the power outage, and warn the advisory could be in place for a few days until water tests come back.

The remainder of the province was expected to have power restored by 10 p.m. Sunday at the latest.

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21. April 2009 by admin.

About 17,000 customers were without power Monday morning after Hydro One equipment failed.

At 5:15 a.m. roughly 11,000 Hydro Ottawa customers in the east and south of Ottawa lost power while about 6,000 Hydro One customers were affected, according to media spokespeople from both utilities.

By 6:30 a.m. Hydro Ottawa was able to restore power to 2,000 customers, Hydro Ottawa spokesperson Susan Barnett said, noting the outage was caused by a loss of supply on the provincial transmission grid.

The provincial transmission grid, she explained, provides power to utilities across the province.

Crews from both Ottawa and the provincial hydro companies have been working to fix the transformer on Hawthorne Road where the equipment broke, Hydro One spokesperson Daniele Gauvin indicated, adding the utility expects to have power restored by noon.

Barnett, meanwhile, indicated power would likely be restored in stages started at 12:30, with the hope of having everyone back online by 2 p.m.

The public and Catholic school boards had closed a number of rural schools in the morning due to the outage. The public board, however, sent students home at eight suburban schools just before 11 a.m. Buses were sent to Carson Grove Elementary School, Colonel By Secondary School, Emily Carr Middle School, Glen Ogilvie Public School, Henry Munro Middle School, Le Phare Elementary School, Norman Johnston Secondary Alternate Program, and Robert Hopkins Public School. The public board expects classes to resume as usual on Tuesday, April 21.

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