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From the Canadian press
Published on May 22, 2022 at 5:14 p.m.
Emergency crews rushed to restore power and clear roads on Sunday, a day after a deadly and devastating storm swept through southern Ontario and Quebec.
The true number of Saturday’s storm is still unclear, but police say at least seven people died from falling trees in strong winds, while eight died when the boat she overturned on the Ottawa River near Mason. Angers, Cue.
Known victims in Ontario since Saturday included a 44-year-old man who died in Greater Madawasca, west of Ottawa, a 70-year-old woman walking in Brampton, a 59-year-old man on an Ottawa golf course and a man killed in a camping trailer near the lake. Pinehurst in the Waterloo region.
On Sunday, provincial police said the storm also killed a 64-year-old woman at a home in North Cavarta and a 74-year-old woman in Port Hope, while Durham regional police said the 30-year-old … an old man had died in the Ganaraska Forest east of Toronto.
Widespread storm damage has caused the cities of Uxbridge, Ontario, north of Toronto, and Clarence Rockland, east of Ottawa, to declare a state of emergency, leaving hundreds of thousands in both provinces without electricity.
“We have a lot of damaged buildings and displaced people,” said Uxbridge Mayor Dave Barton.
The city center has suffered significant damage, including several apartment buildings and a brewery, while the city is still experiencing significant power outages, Barton said.
“The biggest pressure is actually the lack of power and infrastructure. At the moment we do not know what we do not know. Because most phone lines don’t work, we don’t know who needs help and who doesn’t.
Hydraulic suppliers say they have hundreds of crews working to restore services, but warn it could take days for some to regain power.
“Between trees, branches, broken poles and wires down, it’s really a very messy mess,” said Hydro One spokesman Titian Bachega Rosa.
She said that while it is not uncommon for so many people to be temporarily without electricity, which for Hydro One was around 260,000 on Sunday afternoon, the extent of the damage, including the demolition of metal transmission towers in the Ottawa area, is noticeable.
“It’s unique and it tells you somewhat about the severity of the storm,” she said.
Hydro Ottawa said the damage, including more than 200 electric poles in the city, is much more widespread than the 2018 tornado, which left half the city without electricity, meaning it will take longer and be more difficult for removal. As of Sunday afternoon, there were still nearly 175,000 customers without electricity.
Roof repairs were underway throughout the city and chainsaws were buzzing as cleaning continued. The city of Ottawa has opened at least three emergency centers in community centers, where people can charge their devices, take a shower and in some cases have access to food.
East of Ottawa in Navan, Ont., A mare and her newborn foal were trapped, albeit unharmed, when a barn collapsed around them. In nearby Sarsfield, the bell tower of the church of Paroisse Saint-Hugues was thrown out of the building and lay in a ruined pile in the parking lot.
On the other side of the province’s border, Hydro-Québec said the peak of the storm cut off power to 550,000 consumers from Gatineau to Quebec City, while nearly 350,000 consumers were still disconnected on Sunday afternoon.
Sophie Desjardins, who lives in Lashuth, northwest of Montreal, posted a photo of what was left of her truck after a tree crashed into a vehicle while she was returning home with her boyfriend.
“The sky was so dark and the wind was so strong,” Desjardins said Sunday.
“We felt a huge blow and the window broke … When we saw the condition of the truck, we realized that we were very lucky. If the tree had fallen two seconds earlier, it would have fallen directly on us … The furniture in the back of the truck was completely destroyed. ”
The level of damage in both provinces comes in part from the nature of the storm, which appears to have been the so-called gorge, said Canadian meteorologist for the Environment and Climate Change Gerald Cheng.
“When they say derecho, these are widespread, long-lasting wind storms that are associated with fast-moving thunderstorms, and that seems to be what we had yesterday,” he said. “Because when you look at the damage, it was widespread, it wasn’t just one track.”
The storm, with winds of up to 132 kilometers per hour, was strong enough to trigger the agency’s first use of the intermittent weather warning system for a thunderstorm, Cheng said.
However, wind speeds could reach much higher based on some of the concentrated damage, said David Sils, executive director of the Northern Tornado project at Western University.
“We are seeing evidence of some damage, such as roofs and collapsed hydrofoils, things that are getting more involved.” 180 to 220 kilometers per hour.
He said project teams went to the Uxbridge area, as well as to South Ottawa, on suspicion that they may have been hit by a tornado or strong wind.
The last storm that hit the region with such strong wind speeds was in 1995, Sils said.
“This is a very rare event in Canada, where it’s just widespread wind damage on a long, long track and reaching wind speeds that are quite high.”
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