Officials in Toronto say cleanup operations are well underway and many services are returning to normal after homes and streets was soaked by a “100-year storm” that battered the city on Wednesday evening.
A massive thunderstorm swept into Toronto on Wednesday afternoon, dropping hail and rain over the course of a few hours.
At its peak, the city said tens of thousands of people lost power, while the Don River burst its banks, closing portions of the Don Valley River. Homes flooded, trees and power lines came down, and both subway and Toronto island ferry service were suspended.
Global News meteorologist Ross Hull said the average rainfall for August is roughly 78 mm of water. On Wednesday night, parts of Toronto received 150 mm in only a few hours.
By Thursday morning, the sun had returned and the city began to dry off.
“The storm has passed,” Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said at an event Thursday morning.
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“I want to assure the people of Toronto, we were prepared, ours teams were coordinated and we will keep working until every road is clear and every resident has power back.”
The mayor said roughly 90 per cent of homes had had their power restored, while the Don Valley Parkway has reopened. She urged anyone with flooding or other storm-related issues to call 311 for help.
The Canadian National Exhibition was also open Thursday morning, and transit was running as scheduled, as were city-run summer camps, Chow added.
City manager Paul Johnson said the quantity of rain that fell qualified the event as a “100-year storm” by Toronto’s definition.
A similar storm hammered the city in 2005, spurring work around flood mitigation and protection, and “those have been working,” he added.
“The Don River took the brunt” of the storm, Johnson told reporters.
While there will be sewage impacts and some pools remain closed, Johnson said the city was quickly returning to normal service.
“By and large, the City of Toronto today, all of our services and operations are back to normal,” he told reporters.
“We encourage people who have issues with city services or things that have happened, whether it is trees down in the neighbourhood or whatever, call 311.”
Toronto officials said they received roughly 1,000 requests for service. Meanwhile, fire officials reported just shy of 1,500 calls over a 24-hour period, which they said was their second-highest call volume in a day, surpassed only by the 2013 ice storm.
— with files from The Canadian Press
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