CORNWALL – Downed trees, power lines and flying or overturned objects was just some of the damage created late Friday as the region was raked by an intense wind storm.
SD&G was under a wind warning for most of the day as a sharp cold front moved through the area. The wind warning ended around 1:20 a.m. Saturday.
Cornwall city crews had to cut up a downed tree on Elm Street at Cumberland Street, while firefighters were called to a massive tree down in the back yard of a home on Clark Avenue.
On the same street, a tent-type shelter had been overturned in somebody’s driveway by the wind, which reached gusts of nearly 90 kilometers an hour.
It wasn’t as intense as other areas of the province where Environment Canada says wind gusts up to 120 kilometers an hour were recorded.
“Because the ground has not been saturated with water and the trees have not budded out, there was less wind resistance on the trees and therefore less damage,” said Scott Porter, municipal parks supervisor with the City of Cornwall.
As of early Saturday morning, Porter said the extent of the damage in the city was two trees but they would reassess the situation at daybreak.
Porter also cautioned citizens to keep an eye out for garbage cans and other debris that has been blown about when travelling around the city.
Meanwhile, in the county, Hydro One crews were dealing with pockets of outages around Maxville, Morewood, St. Raphaels and north of Alexandria.
There were also reports of downed wires on Dafoe Road in South Stormont, north of Ingleside, where township firefighters and O.P.P. were on scene.
The Seaway International Bridge Corporation had to restrict certain types of traffic across both spans of the bridge to Cornwall Island for several hours, as a precautionary measure.
Elsewhere in Ontario, the storm is being blamed for two deaths.
One man was killed while clearing trees west of Toronto and a man in Hamilton died after he was electrocuted by downed wires in his driveway.
Pearson International Airport also had to stop in-bound and out-bound flights for a couple of hours because of the danger. The Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) also had to be shut down at the Burlington Skyway for a period.