Toronto’s homeless at mercy of ‘bomb cyclone’

toronto/ Montreal: Canada’s largest city, Toronto, scrambled to find emergency shelter for the homeless as temperatures dropped to record lows after a ”weather bomb” knocked out power to tens of thousands in eastern provinces and destroyed coastal roads.

From Halifax to Ottawa, workers struggled on Friday to clear snow and restore power lines downed by winds gusting up to hurricane strengths of 169kph in some areas of Nova Scotia, driving huge storm surges, according to Environment Canada.

The brutal conditions were caused by a rapid plunge in barometric pressure that some weather forecasters called a “bombogenesis”, or a “bomb cyclone”. In Toronto, winds pushed tem

peratures down to a frigid -21° putting people at risk of frost bite in an icy spell expected to last through this morning.

The city said it would open a downtown Toronto armory to serve as a homeless shelter, though warned it would not be ready until tomorrow.

Authorities urged people to go to two other downtown warming centres over the weekend and arranged for two overnight outreach crews to help people in need.

Toronto Mayor John Tory came under fire for not opening the armory sooner and for voting against a measure to do so in December.

As temperatures dropped, nurse and housing advocate Cathy Crowe said she was worried people would freeze to death on the streets. “It’s worse than anything I’ve seen in 30 years as a street nurse,” said Crowe.

Temperatures also plunged in Montreal and Ottawa.

Eastern parts of Quebec province were hit with up to 50cm of snow, according to Environment Canada.