Winds in the devastating storm that hit Ottawa and the region on Saturday reached 190 kilometers per hour in some areas, researchers say, but the tornado did not land.
“Analysis of the data reveals that a particularly intense explosion, not a tornado, is responsible for the damage,” in South Ottawa, the Northern Tornadoes project at Western University said on Twitter on Wednesday morning.
The maximum wind speed reaches 190 kilometers per hour, the researchers said. They measured the storm, known as the Dereho, as EF-2. The EF scale measures the intensity of wind damage on a scale from 0 to 5.
Hydro Ottawa teams reconnected 10,000 customers to the grid overnight, officials said Wednesday morning. Electricity has been restored for about 121,000 customers.
“Some of these bigger pole lines that you see at Woodroffe, at Merivale, are hitting hard today,” Joseph Mulia, Hydro Ottawa’s director of system operations, told CTV Morning Live. “Once we manage to restore these pillar lines, we will see a large number of customers attracted at once.”
Mulia said additional hydro crews arrived from Toronto on Wednesday to help.
“By the end of this week, we are still striving to have the majority of customers online and back with energy,” he said. “This is still the trajectory and this is what we are striving for.”
Hydro One reported that more than 29,000 customers in eastern Ontario were still without electricity on Wednesday morning, up from 49,000 on Tuesday afternoon. Hydro Quebec said there were still 15,500 customers in the Outaouais region to be connected, up from 21,000 on Tuesday.
An NTP storm investigation team is investigating the damage in South Ottawa after a devastation on May 21. The analysis of the data shows that a particularly intense tide, not a tornado, is the cause of the damage there, as the maximum wind speed reaches 190 km / h (EF2). #ONStorm 1/2 pic.twitter.com/qCfR4XaPn5
– Northern Tornadoes Project @ (@westernuNTP) May 25, 2022
About 40 roads are still impassable due to downed trees and water mains, Public Affairs Manager General Alain Gontier told reporters on Tuesday afternoon. Residents are still being asked to stay out of the way if they can.
Some city recreation centers are reopened from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Wednesday for people in need of electricity, water, food and shelter. You can see the full list here. There are also baskets for spoiled food in several places, and the city runs green bins for collecting food waste.
Many city offices closed on Tuesday, but reopened on Wednesday.
The British government and Catholic schools in Ottawa, which are in power, reopen on Wednesday. There are over 60 schools in the city that still do not have electricity and they will remain closed.
Two schools have been hit by the storm and will be closed for a long time. French councils plan to open schools that have power.
At least 10 people in Ontario and Quebec were killed in the storm, including three in the Ottawa region.
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