Key Takeaways:
- According to researchers, the winds in the devastating storm that struck Ottawa and the surrounding areas on Saturday exceeded 190 kilometers per hour in certain places.
- On Wednesday, Ottawa mayor Jim Watson said that Ontario Premier Doug Ford assured him that the province would cover storm cleanup costs.
- Some 40 routes are closed owing to fallen trees and electricity lines, according to Public Works General Manager Alain Gonthier.
According to researchers, winds in the devastating storm that slammed Ottawa and the surrounding on Saturday surpassed 190 kilometers per hour in certain spots, yet no tornado touched down.
“Analysis of the data suggests that the damage in south Ottawa was caused by an extremely violent downburst, not a tornado,” the Northern Tornadoes Project at Western University wrote on Twitter Wednesday morning.
According to the study, maximum wind speeds surpassed 190 km/h. The storm, known as a ‘derecho,’ was rated as an EF-2. On a scale of 0 to 5, the EF-scale rates the severity of wind damage.
Local officials are set to offer an update on recovery activities at 4 p.m. Wednesday. On this page, you may watch it live.
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Hydro Ottawa technicians restored 15,000 more customers to the power grid overnight and into Wednesday morning, leaving 55,000 without power as of 1 p.m.
For around 125,000 clients, power has been restored.
“We’re hitting some of the larger pole lines that you can see on Woodroffe, on Merivale, hard today,” Joseph Muglia, director of system operations for Hydro Ottawa, told CTV Morning Live. “Once we have those pole lines back up, we’ll be able to bring on a big number of clients all at once.”
Additional hydro crews are expected to arrive from Toronto on Wednesday, according to Muglia.
“We’re still aiming for most consumers to be online and connected to power by the end of this week,” he said. “We’re still on that path, aiming towards it.”
Given the complexity of the overlapping outages, Hydro Ottawa has taken its outage map offline, claiming that it does not reflect the current situation.
On Wednesday, Ottawa mayor Jim Watson said Ontario Premier Doug Ford informed him that the province would cover the storm cleanup costs, likely to be millions of dollars.
According to Hydro One, more than 29,000 customers in eastern Ontario were still without power Wednesday morning, up from 49,000 Tuesday afternoon. According to Hydro Quebec, 15,500 consumers in the Outaouais region are still waiting to be connected, down from 21,000 on Tuesday.
According to Public Works General Manager Alain Gonthier, some 40 routes are unusable due to fallen trees and power lines. Residents are being encouraged to keep off the roads as much as possible.
On Wednesday, several city respite centers will be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. for anyone who requires electricity, water, food, or shelter. A complete list can be found here. There are also ruined food disposal bins at various sites, and the city is launching a green bin blitz to collect food waste.
Many city services were closed on Tuesday, but they reopened on Wednesday.
Ottawa’s English public, as well as Catholic schools that have power, will reopen on Wednesday. More than 60 schools in the city are still without electricity and will stay closed.
The hurricane caused damage to two schools, which will be shuttered for an extended time. The French government intends to open schools with electricity.
At least 10 people were killed in the storm spanning Ontario and Quebec, including 3 in the Ottawa area.
Source: CTV News
