Toronto-area residents are breathing a collective sigh of relief after a number of severe thunderstorm watches and warnings were lifted for the region.
Power has also been restored to all customers who earlier experienced outages.
Environment Canada lifted the watch for Toronto just after 7 p.m. Wednesday evening. Severe thunderstorm warnings for large parts of the GTA were also lifted.
Earlier, the weather agency warned that Toronto could face wind gusts of up to 100 km/h, hail between two to four centimetres in diameter and heavy downpours of up to 50 millimetres an hour.
Instead parts of downtown escaped with a small rain shower around 6 p.m., CP24’s meteorologist Chris Potter said.
Some communities west of Toronto were hit with rain and strong winds, he said.
Photos taken near Marden, Ont., showed a number of hydro poles knocked to the ground.
The news came as hundreds of Torontonians continue to feel the effects of Monday’s storm, which dumped a record-breaking 126 millimetres of rain onto the city and left large swaths of downtown flooded.
Trillium Hospital in Mississauga began reporting difficulties with their electricity early Wednesday evening.
A spokesperson from the hospital told CP24 that the hospital is operating on backup generators and remains open to the public. However, it is redirecting ambulances to other hospitals.
Hydro crews are at the site working to fix the problem at the hospital.
The storm caused a major power outage, which at its height left nearly 300,000 customers in the dark.
Power largely restored
Toronto Hydro said that as of 6:30 a.m. Thursday morning, power had been restores to all customers, though Etobicoke's Cloverdale Mall had only a partial restoration.
The power outage was sparked after a Hydro One transmission station flooded during Monday’s storm, cutting the power supply to 17 other stations and leaving thousands in the dark.
Residents are still being asked to cut down on their power usage, so the system can recover from the record rainfall, Bruckmueller said.
She said the power grid is running on a temporary “single-contingency, no back-up” system.
"If we overload, a piece of equipment fails or a raccoon chews on something, we're in the same situation again," she said, adding that the storm brings attention to the need for improved infrastructure and response planning.
Following the storm, Toronto Hydro CEO Anthony Haines said one of the city’s two main hydro supply stations was left under “20 to 30 feet of water.”
Pearson International Airport recorded 126 millimetres of rain on Monday, breaking the city’s single-day rainfall record set on Oct. 15, 1954, when hurricane Hazel dumped 121 millimetres of rain.
With files from The Canadian Press
