On Tuesday, four days after a severe ice storm hit the area, all county residents had their power restored – but for many, cleanup will continue for days.
Thousands of county residents were without power after a severe ice storm swept through the area early on April 12.
The storm also damaged countless trees and property, forced the temporary closure of some local roads and also led to flooding of many homes and businesses.
Hydro One reported well over 115,000 people in the province were affected by the power outage, with every single Wellington municipality hit to varying degrees.
Centre Wellington, Minto, Mapleton, Wellington North, Erin, Guelph-Eramosa and Puslinch were all affected, with the northern part of the county seemingly the hardest hit.
Wellington County emergency management coordinator Linda Dickson said the county did not activate its emergency plan, but kept in touch with municipalities that experienced extended outages – particularly Mapleton, Minto and Wellington North.
Dickson noted that in addition to immediate repairs, county roads crews were out salting and sanding roads.
County Warden Chris White said he kept in close contact with Dickson throughout the day on April 12 and into the weekend.
“The bottom line is we monitored it all the way through,” said White.
While some residents had to deal with power outages lasting for days, White noted the situation could have been a lot worse if the temperature was lower.
A financial estimate on the total damage, losses, and labour and materials required for repairs was not available, but across the county, it could be millions.
“There was tons of business lost,” said Wellington North Mayor Ray Tout.
Mapleton
At about 9am on April 12, Wellington County OPP reported Wellington Road 12, between Wellington Road 109 and the 12th Line of Mapleton Township, was closed due to approximately 30 snapped hydro poles.
Utility crews worked throughout the weekend restoring power to areas in stages. Power wasn’t restored in much of Drayton until late Sunday afternoon, while rural areas in the township had to wait until Monday or Tuesday.
In response, the township opened the PMD Arena in Drayton, operating on generator power, to the public for warming over the weekend. Fresh drinking water and the use of warm showers was also provided. The arena was open again on Monday for those still without power. The Mapleton municipal office was also opened to the public for warming and cell phone charging on Friday.
CAO Patty Sinnamon noted that a small number of people accessed warming centres over the weekend, but generally people found their own means of coping.
“Fortunately we weren’t dealing with very, very cold temperatures,” she pointed out.
Unlike the neighboring municipality of North Perth, Mapleton did not declare a state of emergency. However, Sinnamon said the township did bring its emergency control group together Sunday afternoon to discuss measures like getting food safety information out to the public.
Sinnamon said there was no damage to municipal property as a result of the storm or power outage. But she added many residents were cleaning up storm damage on their properties.
Local public works crews were also working on storm cleanup and Sinnamon said on Monday morning municipal officials were discussing plans to offer a roadside collection service for downed tree limbs.
Minto
In the Town of Minto, power was restored for most residents of Palmerston, Harriston and Clifford by midnight on Friday, with many getting power back earlier in the evening.
In rural parts of the municipality, some residents were still without power on Monday.
The Upper Grand District School Board closed Minto-Clifford Public School just outside Harriston on Monday due to the ongoing outage there.
Minto CAO Bill White said the town called its emergency control group together, and consulted with Wellington County emergency management personnel around 3pm on Friday, but did not end up declaring an emergency because “most of our residents had power back by Friday night.”
White said warming stations were set up on Friday night at the municipal office and the Palmerston Community Centre, operating on generator power, but were not heavily used. The station in Palmerston was operated on Saturday as well, but nobody used it.
“I think our rural residents tend to be a little more resilient,” said White, noting “most of our more vulnerable people live in the urban centres,” where power was restored fairly quickly.”
White said the Minto Fire Department dispatched Wellington County Victim Services personnel “to anyone that needed it.”
White said the storm caused some minor damage to municipal property, “we had some tree limbs falling on vehicles, that type of thing.”
Around the town, said White, “we had quite a number of tree limbs down,” and public works crews were busy clearing them from public areas to keep roadways open through the weekend and into Monday.
Residents with downed tree limbs and branches on their property were being encouraged to place them neatly in their front yard or on the boulevard, ensuring not to interfere with traffic, for pick up.
“We’ll be assessing that and probably keep it going as long as necessary,” said White.
Rising water in basements was a concern throughout the municipality. White said there were a few instances where the fire department was called in to pump water out of homes.
“There was some of that happening, but we have to deal with it on a case-by-case basis,” said White, noting the fire department had to remain prepared to respond to emergencies, including a chimney fire at a 3rd Line residence on Friday evening.
“For the most part, people dealt with plumbers or by finding generators,” White said, adding he felt the town, both staff and citizens, responded well to the situation.
“By and large we had a pretty good response and people did a good job in terms of taking care of each other.”
A debriefing session involving members of the fire, department and emergency control group, was planned for April 18, “to look at what we did well and what we could do better.”
Wellington North
Hydro workers with Wellington North Power (WNP) were kept busy during the power outage.
Power to Mount Forest and Kenilworth was interrupted, while no outages were reported in Arthur.
WNP President and CEO Judy Rosebrugh said crews were called out at around 3am Friday and worked about 16 hours before returning Saturday to continue the work.
Five poles were knocked down just north of Mount Forest on Highway 6, causing the main power interruption to Mount Forest and Holstein.
“We had our system cleaned up on Friday,” said Rosebrugh, referring to one pole that had to be replaced on Albert Street and some house connections that were broken due to heavy ice.
“The majority of our outage was from supply (Hydro One).”
A press release from WNP said its staff “worked tirelessly ensuring the customers of Mount Forest, Arthur and Holstein were all cared for during Friday’s power outage” and its customer service staff “fielded hundreds of calls from customers.”
In Mount Forest power was restored at around 9:30pm on Friday, after an outage that lasted about 18 hours and basically forced the shutdown of the entire community. Pockets around Holstein were fully restored on Saturday and Sunday.
Wellington North Mayor Ray Tout said municipal works employees assisted WNP workers during the blackout.
“Everybody just worked together,” Tout said.
Isolated pockets in the township were still without power early Monday, the fourth day after the outage started.
Mike Armstrong of Mount Forest Foodland said he brought in a generator to keep refrigerated food frozen, but his store, like others in the town, was forced to close.
“My losses were negligible,” said Armstrong.
Barry Trood, township water and sewer superintendent, said backup generators for the town’s sewage treatment plant and wells ran perfectly.
“We test run our generators monthly which gives some assurance that our equipment will run as required to do so,” Trood said.
Tout, who is also WNP chairman, said every effort was put in to cope with the situation.
“It was all hands on deck at WNP on Friday from answering phone calls to conducting patrols looking for storm damage,” Tout said.
“The team worked through a difficult situation with success..”
Road superintendent Dale Clark said works crews will be working to clean up limbs downed in the storm. Residents are asked to place small tree limbs curbside for pickup.
Centre Wellington
In Centre Wellington last week, concerns quickly switched from potential flooding along the Grand River in Fergus and Elora to power outages and falling trees or limbs.
Wayne Dyce, operations manager for Centre Wellington Hydro, said the April 12 storm affected about 2,500 customers. In all, power was out for roughly 10 hours starting at 3:30am on April 12.
Dyce added that all of Centre Wellington Hydro crews were out from 3:30am until about 8pm. Locally, the outage was caused by a combination of freezing rain and tree limbs falling on lines.
While Elora was the main area affected, Centre Wellington Hydro crews also provided assistance to Hydro One staff clearing lines. They continued to provide assistance to Hydro One crews on Saturday and Sunday.
To Dyce’s knowledge, there are no damage estimates at this time.
On April 15, Centre Wellington Mayor Joanne Ross-Zuj publicly thanked local hydro and works department crews for their efforts.
“Friday was rather interesting wasn’t it. We had all kinds of power dilemmas,” she said. “But everyone did what they do so well, getting everyone back on line as soon as possible.”
Erin
As the rest of Wellington County experienced storm damage and power outages, Erin was hosting the relaunch of its community radio station Mix 88.1.
Ironically, or appropriately, the station’s origins date back to the hydro blackout of 2003.Since that time the station has also served as the community’s emergency broadcast system.
Last week’s storm left pockets of power outages in and around the villages of Hillsburgh and Erin, but almost all of those were addressed by Friday afternoon. Erin’s road superintendent Larry Van Wyck was unavailable for comment on the storm.
Guelph-Eramosa
Warden Chris White, also the mayor of Guelph-Eramosa Township, said the power outages in his township were not nearly as bad as those in the northern part of the county.
The mayor said there was no real damage to municipal property and any road closures due to falling trees were on county roads. Upwards of 1,000 customers in and around Rockwood, which is serviced by Guelph Hydro, were intermittently without power on Friday morning and into the afternoon, but the outages there were relatively short lived.
“The positive thing was it was sporadic here,” White said of Rockwood.
In rural areas of the township, which are serviced by Hydro One, power outages began early on Friday morning and lasted for some until Saturday evening.
Puslinch
Puslinch Township’s public works superintendent Don Creed said hydro was lost at around 3am in Aberfoyle, including at the municipal yard and community centre – both those buildings were up and running on generators.
Hydro returned to Aberfoyle and at those locations sometime Friday night.
There were pockets elsewhere throughout the township that lost power at some point on Friday, but outages in Puslinch were not widespread and were generally short lived compared to other areas in the county.
Creed said Puslinch staff was busy salting icy roads for the first part of the storm then switched over to tree and debris removal from roadways.
Numerous trees and hydro lines were down throughout the township, he said, resulting in two closed roads. Both were reopened by the end of the day on Friday and all township roads were cleared and open by 4pm that day.
