Busy, blustery day for Port Colborne crews
City of Port Colborne operations staff were kept busy with Tuesday’s windstorm, working from mid-afternoon until Wednesday morning clearing trees and debris from the roads and city property.
Michelle Cuthbert, the city’s corporate communications officer, said there were between 50 and 60 calls for service to the operations centre during the wind event, which saw gusts upwards of 90 km/h along the Lake Erie shoreline.
While some of those calls were about the same issue, Cuthbert said city staff responded to at least 18 calls for reports of trees down.
“That doesn’t mean all of those trees were on city property.”
She said operations crews started receiving calls after 1:30 p.m. Tuesday and six staff and three supervisors worked until 10 p.m. when a changeover occurred, with four staff and one supervisor working until 5:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Staff were also required to be at municipal drains that empty into the lake to make sure they didn’t back up into surrounding properties.
As for trees cut on city property, Cuthbert said the wood is left for homeowners to take if they want it and whatever is left after a couple of days is taken to the landfill for recycling by Niagara Region.
While city operations crews were busy, so, too, were Port Colborne Fire and Emergency Services firefighters said Chief Tom Cartwright.
“We had 12 or 13 calls between 3 p.m. and 11 p.m. Tuesday.”
The majority, the chief said, were for trees resting on hydro lines and wires.
There was also a call for the report of a motorcyclist struck by a tree, but when firefighters arrived on scene they found it was the motorcycle that struck a tree on Babion Road near Highway 3.
“The tree fell on the road and the motorcyclist hit it when he was coming up the road. It did not hit him. He wasn’t hurt and didn’t require medical attention,” Cartwright said.
The chief said volunteer firefighters were out with career firefighters from the time the first call for assistance came in about 3 p.m. until at least 6 p.m.