A major cleanup effort is underway following Saturday’s fierce storm that left at least eight people dead and hundreds of thousands without power after it swept across southern Ontario and Quebec.
The storm damage has led the Ontario towns of Uxbridge, north of Toronto, and Clarence-Rockland, east of Ottawa, to declare states of emergency, while hundreds of thousands across Ontario and Quebec remain without power as crews work to restore services.
WATCH | Storm leaves extensive damage in its wake:
Thousands in Ottawa area without power after deadly storm
7 hours ago
Duration 1:53
Hundreds of thousands of people in the Ottawa-Gatineau area are without power, following storms that left at least eight people dead in Ontario and Quebec.
A statement posted on the Township of Uxbridge’s website says there are widespread power outages and many closed roads due to downed trees and power lines.
Residents are being asked to stay home to allow municipal workers to focus on removing road hazards rather than manage traffic congestion.
Hydro providers, meanwhile, are warning that it could take days for some customers to get their power back.
“Between trees, branches, broken poles and wires down, it’s really a very, very messy, messy cleanup,” Hydro One spokesperson Tiziana Baccega Rosa said.
She said while it’s not unusual to have such high numbers of customers temporarily without power — which for Hydro One stood at about 226,000 early Monday — the extent of the damage, including the toppling of metal transmission towers in the Ottawa area, is notable.
200 poles destroyed in Ottawa area
The utility could not say when most issues were likely to be resolved, noting that 200 hydro poles had been knocked out or destroyed. Hydro Ottawa said 166,000 customers remained without power early Monday and advised it could take days to restore service.
Ottawa Fire Services said on Twitter that the city’s fire, police and paramedics fielded about 3,000 911 calls between 4 a.m. Saturday and midnight; 2,000 of them came in the storm’s first three hours.
Utility crews work to make sure the power is off as motorists remain in their vehicles after the storm took down poles and power lines, on Merivale Road in Ottawa on Saturday. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
Hydro-Québec said that at the peak, the storm cut power to 550,000 customers from Gatineau to Quebec City, while as of about noon Sunday, there were some 370,000 customers still in the dark. Most of the power outages were in the Quebec City, Outaouais, Laurentians, Lanaudière and Montérégie regions.
A Hydro-Québec spokesperson said most people should have their power later Sunday, starting with those in the hardest-hit regions.
Destructive winds of a ‘derecho’
The level of damage across the two provinces came in part from the nature of the storm, which looks to have been what is called a “derecho,” said Environment and Climate Change Canada meteorologist Gerald Cheng.
“When they say derecho, it’s widespread, long-lived wind storms that are associated with rapidly moving thunderstorms, and that seems to be what we had yesterday,” he said. “Because when you look at the damage, that was widespread, it wasn’t just one track.”
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Hydro One, Ontario’s largest service provider for electricity, supplies power to Toronto Hydro, which on Sunday morning tweeted that it continues to deal with “multiple outages across the city.”
Customers heading to Toronto Hydro’s outage map on its website were unable to get an update for hours on what areas were still affected. But the outage map was functioning again on Sunday afternoon.
WATCH | Severe thunderstorms hit southern Ontario:
Severe thunderstorms hit southern Ontario
2 days ago
Duration 0:31
Several cities and towns were under a thunderstorm warning on Saturday as areas such as Kitchener, Ont., saw heavy rain and high winds.
“We’re working on restoring our outage map and appreciate your ongoing patience,” the utility said on the website earlier in the day.
Weather alert system kicks in
The storm carried winds strong enough to trigger the agency’s first use of the broadcast-interrupting weather alert system for a thunderstorm, Cheng said.
Trees and power lines were knocked down by ferocious winds in a system that first developed near Sarnia, Ont., and then moved west to the Ottawa area and Quebec. Environment Canada reported peak wind gusts of 120 km/h at the Ottawa International Airport. At one point, winds reached 132 km/h at the airport in Kitchener, Ont.
The Ontario fatalities from the storm include a 44-year-old man in Greater Madawaska, west of Ottawa; a woman in her 70s out for a walk in Brampton; a 30-year-old man in the Ganaraska Forest, east of Oshawa, Ont.; and a 59-year-old man on a golf course in Ottawa. As well, one person was killed and two others were injured in their camping trailer near Pinehurst Lake in Brant County. All five people were killed after being struck by a falling tree.
Peel police say a woman was reportedly walking between two houses in Brampton, Ont., when a tree fell on top of her. (Grant Linton/CBC)
At an emergency news conference on Saturday night, the City of Ottawa’s head of emergency services, Kim Ayotte, was surprised by the storm’s scope.
“This one hit us hard, it hit us fast…. I was out at the airport earlier and I saw telephone posts knocked down, large trees uprooted, several hydro lines being split in half. It was incredible. The sheer area that was affected is like nothing I’ve seen in my memory.”
Officials in Ottawa say the cleanup from the storm could take several days.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.
The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.
Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.
West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.
Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.
“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”
Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.
West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.
“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”
DETROIT (AP) — Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.
The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.
One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.
“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.
“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”
Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.
Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.
In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.
“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.”
Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.
Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.
Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.
“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”
VICTORIA – British Columbia‘s Environment Assessment Office has fined Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd. $590,000 for “deficiencies” in the construction of its pipeline crossing the province.
The office says in a statement that 10 administrative penalties have been levied against the company for non-compliance with requirements of its environmental assessment certificate.
It says the fines come after problems with erosion and sediment control measures were identified by enforcement officers along the pipeline route across northern B.C. in April and May 2023.
The office says that the latest financial penalties reflect its escalation of enforcement due to repeated non-compliance of its requirements.
Four previous penalties have been issued for failing to control erosion and sediment valued at almost $800,000, while a fifth fine of $6,000 was handed out for providing false or misleading information.
The office says it prioritized its inspections along the 670-kilometre route by air and ground as a result of the continued concerns, leading to 59 warnings and 13 stop-work orders along the pipeline that has now been completed.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
