Winter storm leaves ice-covered cars damaged from falling trees

By CRM Staff

Toronto, Ontario — December 23, 2013 — The City of Toronto and surrounding areas across southern Ontario were blasted by an icy winter storm over the weekend, leaving many cars iced over and damaged from falling tree branches.

The storm caused widespread car accidents and power outages across Toronto, leaving over 250,000 without power spanning the early Sunday morning hours until present. While some Toronto residents have had their power restored, Toronto Hydro estimates that of its total customers roughly 215,000 customers are still without power.

Initial reports suggested that power could be out across the city and surrounding regions for up to 72 hours, but now Toronto Hydro is hesistant to commit to any absolute assurance that power will be back on before Christmas Day due to the gravity of damage, fallen trees and downed power lines throughout the company’s grid. Crews are working around-the-clock, however, to restore power as fast as possible.

Freezing rain caused much of the damage, coating the city’s power lines and trees with ice to the point where entire sections of tree branches broke under the weight of the ice, landing unceremoniously on power lines and awaiting vehicles; downed lines continue to be an issue for city workers as they try to restore power and remove debris from damaged cars.

Toronto Hydro has continued to update which areas in its grid are most affected, a map which can be viewed online at TorontoHydro.com.

Toronto Hydro users can also follow the operator on Twitter – @TorontoHydro – for any recent service updates.

To view more of W. Hanna’s photos of the recent winter ice storm that swept through southern Ontario, please visit his flickr page at Flickr.com.