Bitter
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Toronto crews cleaning up damages caused by ice storm |
This Holiday
season, thousands of families across Toronto
may be spending Christmas and perhaps the new years in the dark due to the city
wide power outage caused by a rare ice storm. The Ice storm shadowed the
southern and Eastern part of Canada
in thick layers of ice, wrecking holiday plans of thousands. The Ice storm was
the caused from the heavy doze of freezing rain that continuously poured
through out Saturday night. On Sunday, 400,000 people across the city woke up
with no power in their homes, leaving them in the dark and stranded in their
cold homes. The rare winter storm has turned streets and sidewalks into rice,
snapping trees and sending massive chunks of branching into power lines,
disrupting electrical services across the Greater Toronto Area. The Extreme
weather has also crippled the Toronto
public transit system, causing the cancellation subway lines, making it
difficult for commuters to travel around the city. Toronto Hydro CEO, Anthony
Haines, described the ice storm, saying “It truly is a catastrophic ice storm
that we had here, probably one of the worst we have ever seen.”
The Heavy Ice
storm that has left Toronto Hydro’s customers without power is also responsible
for the high rise in Carbon Monoxide related emergency calls and Carbon
Monoxide related deaths in the city. Many people who were left without power
since Saturday scramble to stay warm while risking their lives in the process.
A fifty five year old man and his seventy two year old mother died of inhaling
carbon monoxide gas when the gas managed escape into the living room from the
garage where a gas-power generator was running to heat up the home. Emergency
teams where also called upon another carbon monoxide poisoning today, this
Christmas Eve evening. The Two females that inhaled the gas where taken to a
Hospital from suffering from the exposure through a charcoal barbecue that was
kept on to heat up their house. Yesterday, four adults and two children were
also rushed to a hospital from their Danforth home after trying to use charcoal
barbecue to generate heat for their cold homes. The desperate need to keep warm
had also cost a Scarborough resident their homes when
Flames blazed through the roof of the home over night, causing sever damage to
the home.
So far, Toronto
Hydro has restored power to 215,000 victims just in time for the Christmas, but
about 85,000 customers are still without power. Similar concerns among many is
that their food they have bought for the holidays may spoil, making them to
lose money. Ice storm victims are also urged to visit warming shelters across
the city, which for a lot of families means spending the holiday away for home.
For many families who do not plan on going to warming shelters, the reality is
spending Christmas in the dark and possibly the New Years if power is not
restored on time. Although this year ice storm was severe, it is nowhere near
the harsh ice storm that slammed Ontario
sixteen years ago, leaving approximately five million people across Ontario
in the dark for up to two weeks. Large tree Branches still cover the streets of
the city and cars are even damaged by large tree branches that fell on them.
Clean up across the city is also beginning by city crew as Toronto Hydro crew
battle to restore power in the entire city in time for the New Year.