Storm repsonse comforting

Two storms roared through the district this past weekend.
The first on Saturday night brought lots of rain and gusts of wind, something that we needed.
Then, early Monday morning with weather warnings out, Fort Frances and east of the town had trees toppled across power lines and streets and power outages from east of Fort Frances through to Rainy River.
We depend on our electricity and waking up in darkness Monday morning with lights flashing on the street, I had reached for a light switch, only to realize that we were without power.
A home is a very dark place on a moonless night and with no streetlights shining through windows.
We could hear pops and see flashes of light as branches arched across the power lines. Within minutes of the power outage at my home, the Fort Frances Power Corp. were on the scene with a crew and bucket truck to tackle the branch that had fallen over the feeder line running from north of the tracks on Victoria Avenue clear through to the river.
Working with only powerful flashlights in total darkness, the crew spent over two hours untangling the branches from around the high voltage lines.
You often don’t hear that power line workers are first responders, but the entire crew in Fort Frances was out in force attacking trees across power lines early Monday morning.
With a chainsaw singing, the crew carefully dissected those tall branches and carefully dropped them to the ground to avoid hitting wires and the truck on which they rose on the boom.
It was not an easy task. Limited visibility, a headlamp on the person in the basket, a second bright light held by a second ground crew, focused on the cutting area.
Decisions had to be made concerning the order that the branches were to be removed, and finally the last branch was cleared and power was restored. The big branch that had split from the silver maple still rested against the power pole.
With power restored, the crew sped off to the next tree. I overheard that it was in the east end and had caused a fire.
A second truck went in a different direction toward the wood yard in the south end of Fort Frances.
Checking with staff at the newspaper, one had huge trees down around their lake home and road that had to be cut up to come into work.
The Public Works department had blocked off Third Street and removed a large tree that had fallen across the lanes of traffic by daylight.
East of Fort Frances, Hydro One crews were attending power outages on Reef Point, Hopkins Bay, Rocky Islet, and islands in the south arm of Rainy.
Winds are still blowing, rain is in the air, and the crews are working quickly to restore power.
It is comforting to know that the community and district has a dedicated workforce ready to tackle problems in all types of weather and conditions.