The Canadian Press
TORONTO–Hydro repair crews continue restoring electricity to thousands of homes and businesses affected by a powerful wind storm that raked Ontario yesterday.
The Hydro One outage map showed about 38,000 outages by early today, down from a peak of about 88,000.
Some areas were not expected to have power back until about 5 p.m.
The strong wind also caused multiple outages in western Quebec.
Hydro Quebec was dealing with more than 55,000 outages as of 4 a.m., primarily in the suburbs south of Montreal.
Environment Canada said wind gusts topped 100 km/h in Port Colborne on the Lake Erie shoreline.
Gusts in the upper 90s were recorded in Hamilton and Brockville, and at both the Pearson International and Toronto’s Billy Bishop airports.
In addition to bringing down trees, signs, tiles, and branches, the wind toppled a large construction crane in Mississauga.
A video posted online by The Weather Network showed bricks being ripped off the side of a residence in Ottawa.
Pictures posted on social media show a large KFC bucket and the pole it was mounted on blown to the ground at a Hamilton-area location.
