A BLAST OF RAIN
Thunderstorm ravages parts of city, knocking out power and upending trees,
One second, Paige Smith was looking out her living room window at the thunderstorm raging through her Upper Beaches neighbourhood, the next, there was a tree falling onto her house.
“It happened really fast,” the 16-year-old said of the damage to her home in Wednesday’s storm. “Just suddenly, the whole lawn came up and just started coming up towards the house.
“And then I heard a really loud noise. I saw the whole thing, the tree just fell on the house.”
Paige’s mother, Laura, was on her way home from work after the thunderstorm rolled through Toronto, ravaging parts of the city. She was initially worried about the backyard garden — then she turned onto her street.
“I looked down further and I’m like, ‘Oh my God!’ My front yard is ripped!” Luckily, no one was injured. The Smith’s front yard was completely uprooted during the storm, which left other parts of Toronto and the GTA with scattered power outages and damage from fallen trees. The storm even flooded part of Toronto’s Eaton Centre.
Toronto Hydro said the storm left about 16,500 residents without power in “scattered pockets” of the city. Toronto Hydro said that it ia aiming to restore power overnight to 90 per cent of the customers affected by the storm. By 10 p.m. just 9,000 residents were still without power.
The thunderstorm began at about 3:50 p.m., pushing its way from the northwest corner of the city to the southwest in about an hour, though Environment Canada meteorologist David Rodgers said in any given spot in the city, the storm would have lasted around 30 minutes.
Environment Canada had issued a severe thunderstorm watch Wednesday for all of the GTA and a large portion of southern and eastern Ontario. The main threat was wind gusts of 90 to 100 km/h. At Avenue Rd. and Edmund Ave. Toronto Police had to rescue two people after the storm caused a hydro pole to fall onto their car at 4:26 p.m., trapping them inside.
Toronto Fire Services helped them out and there were no injuries reported.
The storm’s damage wasn’t limited to the outdoors.
The south side of the Eaton Centre became a waterfall on Wednesday. Water poured from the third floor near the Apple Store, pooled on the second floor and made its way down to the first floor, near Richtree Natural Market Restaurants.
Social media posts from customers in the mall’s upper level show water pouring through lighting fixtures. It was unclear where the leak originated.
Security used yellow and black caution tape to cordon off the leaking areas, redirecting shoppers who gathered around to watch and take photos of the flooding.
In the Upper Beaches, yellow caution tape roped off the intersection of Duvernet Ave. and Normandy Blvd., which was filled with branches. Tucked under the fallen foliage was a car, almost entirely covered by branches and leaves.
“Every single street around here, it seems, got absolutely demolished,” said Eleanor Bothwell, who lives in the area. She said the neighbourhood was also hit hard by wind storms earlier this year.
Power in the neighbourhood was out, but most houses were spared by fallen trees.
“My house is fine,” Bothwell said. “That’s what’s so weird. I still have planters sitting on my front porch that are totally fine. And yet, this is insane. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The forecast Thursday and Friday calls for clear, sunny skies, perfect for patio-hopping. Environment Canada anticipates strong winds will return on Thursday, possibly reaching 50 km/h. Environment Canada says Thursday will have a high of 22 C and a low of 13 C. Friday is expected to have a high of 25 C and a low of 14 C, kicking off the weekend right with picturesque weather.