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'It looks like a war scene': Ottawa mayor warns it will take days to restore power after tornado
by John Paul Tasker, CBC News
September 22, 2018
Hydro Ottawa president says damage to electrical grid 'worse than the ice storm' of 1998
A young couple surveys the damage to their home following a tornado in Dunrobin, west of Ottawa, on Friday. The twister caused mass blackouts and left several people injured. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)
About 150,000 Hydro Ottawa customers alone are without power after a twister ripped through the area and neighbouring Gatineau, Que., on Friday — and the mayor warns it could take "days" to restore service to those affected by the storm.
Speaking to reporters Saturday, Jim Watson said the tornado has plunged large swaths of the city into darkness after the Hydro One-owned Merivale substation was badly damaged by high winds, disconnecting parts of the city from the provincial transmission grid.
In addition to destroying part of the city's electrical infrastructure, the storm sent five people to local hospitals — two are in critical condition, one is in serious condition and the other two are stable. Five more people in neighbouring Gatineau, on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, were transported to local hospitals with injuries.
Watson said the Merivale substation cannot be fixed easily, meaning there will be prolonged outages until crews can first clear out substantial debris and then make the necessary repairs.
"It's in the top two or three traumatic events that have affected our city [in history]," Watson said. "I've experienced nothing like this in all my life living in Ottawa."
"Literally it looks like some bomb was dropped from the area, and the aerial footage I saw, the paramedics have provided a drone ... it looks like something you'd see in a movie or in tornado alley in Oklahoma," Watson said of Dunrobin, a small community on the western reaches of the city, where residents were hardest hit. "It looks like something from a movie scene or a war scene."
Based on early damage reports, the tornado was likely an EF-2, meaning it had sustained winds of 179 to 218 km/h.
Electrical damage worse than the ice storm
The tornado has caused considerable damage to dozens of homes, trees and electrical transmission towers. More than 40 homes in Dunrobin alone were flattened or destroyed, leaving a trail of debris and household goods strewn across area streets.
The scene was equally horrifying in Gatineau, where more than 600 people were left looking for shelter after their homes were rendered uninhabitable as a result of the wind damage.
After hitting Dunrobin and skipping across the Ottawa River. the tornado again touched down in Gatineau's Mont Bleu neighbourhood, upending cars there and lifting roofs straight off homes.
There were also a number of fires reported late Friday and into early Saturday morning in Ottawa-Gatineau as a result of people burning candles for light, putting additional pressure on the already stretched first responders. Authorities urged people without power to use battery-powered devices, rather than an open flame.
A car rests under debris on Boulevard de la Cité-des-Jeunes in Gatineau. (Toni Choueiri/CBC)
Bryce Conrad, president of the Hydro Ottawa, said the storm was "devastating" to the electrical infrastructure, and damage to the grid is even worse than what it sustained from the 1998 ice storm. "In terms of the magnitude of the damage to our infrastructure — it's bad," Conrad said.
With the Merivale substation out of service, roughly half of the necessary megawatts the city needs to keep the lights on is out of commission. Neighbourhoods in Ottawa's west and south — including Kanata, Nepean, Barrhaven, Stittsville, but also parts of the Glebe, Westboro and Centretown — are experiencing outages.
"That station has been hard hit. It's down. It is being assessed. It will take multiple days to restore that station," Conrad said, asking customers to be patient while crews work round the clock. "When that station comes back on line, power will flow. In the meantime we're trying to redirect power to try to restore power where we can but that transformer station is the problem for us at the moment — this is a multi-day outage."
In total, 200 citywide outages have left 147,000 Hydro Ottawa customers without power and another 2,000 rural customers, serviced by Hydro One, are also without service.
Conrad said he did not yet have accurate estimates for when power would be restored, but it would likely occur at different times for different neighbourhoods depending on the level of damage to local infrastructure. He said he expected an update on power restoration later Saturday.
Strong winds cause massive power outages and detroy homes 1:01
In a subsequent interview with CBC News, Conrad said he has never had so many customers without power during his tenure at the municipal-owned electrical utility. He called it a "crisis" that will not be solved until that Hydro One transmission substation is up and running again, feeding power to an energy-starved local distribution system.
"This is not a go out for dinner, come home, your power will be on. This is going to take time. If you were to see the devastation at that transformer station — you will understand just how significant it is," he said.
Beyond the Merivale substation, roughly 80 to 90 hydro poles were downed by the storm.
More than 300 traffic lights throughout Ottawa are offline as a result of the power disruptions. Drivers should treat those intersections as they would a four-way stop.
All of Ottawa's hospitals are running on backup generators until power can be restored.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford will travel to the area Sunday to survey the damage, pledging all the provincial resources necessary to help the municipal government recover from the tornado.
"On behalf of the government of Ontario, I want to tell the people of Ottawa that my thoughts are with them as they work to recover from the tornado and storm that impacted the Ottawa area yesterday, especially to the people of Dunrobin who saw immense damage to their homes and community," he said in a statement.
Also affected were some 50,000 Hydro-Québec customers.
Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, who is in the midst of a provincial election campaign, suspended his electioneering Saturday to travel to Gatineau to tour the widespread damage in that city.
Hydro poles in the Greenbank/Hunt Club area of Ottawa were damaged by high winds Friday. Hydro Ottawa President Bryce Conrad said damage to electric infrastructure could take days to restore. (Leah Hansen/CBC)
Ottawa's police chief said that, despite the blackout, there are no reports of widespread criminal activity or looting.
"At this time, we have no reports of social disorder calls you would associate with a blackout. We will be maintaining an enhanced and visible presence in areas without power throughout this outage," said Charles Bordeleau.
Bordeleau urged residents to stay away from affected areas so as to avoid injury.
There are shelters available in the city's west end for affected residents, including emergency reception centres at the West Carleton High School for those in the Dunrobin area and at the Canterbury Recreation Centre for people living in the Hunt Club-Riverside area.
More information
by John Paul Tasker, CBC News
September 22, 2018
Hydro Ottawa president says damage to electrical grid 'worse than the ice storm' of 1998
A young couple surveys the damage to their home following a tornado in Dunrobin, west of Ottawa, on Friday. The twister caused mass blackouts and left several people injured. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)
About 150,000 Hydro Ottawa customers alone are without power after a twister ripped through the area and neighbouring Gatineau, Que., on Friday — and the mayor warns it could take "days" to restore service to those affected by the storm.
Speaking to reporters Saturday, Jim Watson said the tornado has plunged large swaths of the city into darkness after the Hydro One-owned Merivale substation was badly damaged by high winds, disconnecting parts of the city from the provincial transmission grid.
In addition to destroying part of the city's electrical infrastructure, the storm sent five people to local hospitals — two are in critical condition, one is in serious condition and the other two are stable. Five more people in neighbouring Gatineau, on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, were transported to local hospitals with injuries.
Watson said the Merivale substation cannot be fixed easily, meaning there will be prolonged outages until crews can first clear out substantial debris and then make the necessary repairs.
"It's in the top two or three traumatic events that have affected our city [in history]," Watson said. "I've experienced nothing like this in all my life living in Ottawa."
"Literally it looks like some bomb was dropped from the area, and the aerial footage I saw, the paramedics have provided a drone ... it looks like something you'd see in a movie or in tornado alley in Oklahoma," Watson said of Dunrobin, a small community on the western reaches of the city, where residents were hardest hit. "It looks like something from a movie scene or a war scene."
Based on early damage reports, the tornado was likely an EF-2, meaning it had sustained winds of 179 to 218 km/h.
Electrical damage worse than the ice storm
The tornado has caused considerable damage to dozens of homes, trees and electrical transmission towers. More than 40 homes in Dunrobin alone were flattened or destroyed, leaving a trail of debris and household goods strewn across area streets.
The scene was equally horrifying in Gatineau, where more than 600 people were left looking for shelter after their homes were rendered uninhabitable as a result of the wind damage.
After hitting Dunrobin and skipping across the Ottawa River. the tornado again touched down in Gatineau's Mont Bleu neighbourhood, upending cars there and lifting roofs straight off homes.
There were also a number of fires reported late Friday and into early Saturday morning in Ottawa-Gatineau as a result of people burning candles for light, putting additional pressure on the already stretched first responders. Authorities urged people without power to use battery-powered devices, rather than an open flame.
A car rests under debris on Boulevard de la Cité-des-Jeunes in Gatineau. (Toni Choueiri/CBC)
Bryce Conrad, president of the Hydro Ottawa, said the storm was "devastating" to the electrical infrastructure, and damage to the grid is even worse than what it sustained from the 1998 ice storm. "In terms of the magnitude of the damage to our infrastructure — it's bad," Conrad said.
With the Merivale substation out of service, roughly half of the necessary megawatts the city needs to keep the lights on is out of commission. Neighbourhoods in Ottawa's west and south — including Kanata, Nepean, Barrhaven, Stittsville, but also parts of the Glebe, Westboro and Centretown — are experiencing outages.
"That station has been hard hit. It's down. It is being assessed. It will take multiple days to restore that station," Conrad said, asking customers to be patient while crews work round the clock. "When that station comes back on line, power will flow. In the meantime we're trying to redirect power to try to restore power where we can but that transformer station is the problem for us at the moment — this is a multi-day outage."
In total, 200 citywide outages have left 147,000 Hydro Ottawa customers without power and another 2,000 rural customers, serviced by Hydro One, are also without service.
Conrad said he did not yet have accurate estimates for when power would be restored, but it would likely occur at different times for different neighbourhoods depending on the level of damage to local infrastructure. He said he expected an update on power restoration later Saturday.
Strong winds cause massive power outages and detroy homes 1:01
In a subsequent interview with CBC News, Conrad said he has never had so many customers without power during his tenure at the municipal-owned electrical utility. He called it a "crisis" that will not be solved until that Hydro One transmission substation is up and running again, feeding power to an energy-starved local distribution system.
"This is not a go out for dinner, come home, your power will be on. This is going to take time. If you were to see the devastation at that transformer station — you will understand just how significant it is," he said.
Beyond the Merivale substation, roughly 80 to 90 hydro poles were downed by the storm.
More than 300 traffic lights throughout Ottawa are offline as a result of the power disruptions. Drivers should treat those intersections as they would a four-way stop.
All of Ottawa's hospitals are running on backup generators until power can be restored.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford will travel to the area Sunday to survey the damage, pledging all the provincial resources necessary to help the municipal government recover from the tornado.
"On behalf of the government of Ontario, I want to tell the people of Ottawa that my thoughts are with them as they work to recover from the tornado and storm that impacted the Ottawa area yesterday, especially to the people of Dunrobin who saw immense damage to their homes and community," he said in a statement.
Also affected were some 50,000 Hydro-Québec customers.
Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, who is in the midst of a provincial election campaign, suspended his electioneering Saturday to travel to Gatineau to tour the widespread damage in that city.
Hydro poles in the Greenbank/Hunt Club area of Ottawa were damaged by high winds Friday. Hydro Ottawa President Bryce Conrad said damage to electric infrastructure could take days to restore. (Leah Hansen/CBC)
Ottawa's police chief said that, despite the blackout, there are no reports of widespread criminal activity or looting.
"At this time, we have no reports of social disorder calls you would associate with a blackout. We will be maintaining an enhanced and visible presence in areas without power throughout this outage," said Charles Bordeleau.
Bordeleau urged residents to stay away from affected areas so as to avoid injury.
There are shelters available in the city's west end for affected residents, including emergency reception centres at the West Carleton High School for those in the Dunrobin area and at the Canterbury Recreation Centre for people living in the Hunt Club-Riverside area.
More information
