Toronto weather creates havoc in Toronto as ice storm leaves 400,000 in the dark across Ontario
The purpose of this post is to advise friends and relatives of travellers who are in Canada for a visit and scheduled to leave the country during the holiday season. Ice storm that hits Toronto and other cities on Saturday stranded most travellers. Here is part of the news that was published early Monday morning. Read on....latest news at the end of the article.
A “rare and vigorous” winter storm that coated Eastern Canada in a thick layer of ice over the weekend saw major power outages in Toronto, paralyzing much of the city’s transit system and stranding holiday travellers.
The steady dose of freezing rain Saturday night turned roads and sidewalks into skating rinks Sunday, cut power to hundreds of thousands of people, and played havoc with holiday plans at one of the busiest travel times of the year.
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| Stranded Travellers at Pearson International Airport in Toronto Photo Credit : James Martin/National Post |
At the peak of the storm’s impact Sunday, hundreds of thousands of households were without power — approximately 300,000 in Toronto alone. By late Sunday night, Toronto Hydro was still working to restore power to 254,000 customers. Southern Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes saw as much as 30 mm of ice blanket roads and trees, sending broken branches into power lines.
“It truly is a catastrophic ice storm that we have had here, probably one of the worst we’ve ever had,” Toronto Hydro CEO Anthony Haines said Sunday. The worst hit parts of Toronto are the neighbourhoods near the 401, stretching the city from Etobicoke to Scarbourough.
