The president of Toronto Hydro says the effects of the pre-Christmas ice storm were catastrophic, but the system worked as designed.

At a briefing on Hydro's response to the storm damage, Anthony Haines said, "The process worked as it is designed to do.

"And we're fairly pleased with what has happened, and our response to what was really a very catastrophic weather event, one that you heard me talk about being one of the most major weather events in Toronto Hydro's history."

Addressing one area flagged for improvement, Toronto Hydro Vice-President and Chief Conservation Officer Chris Tyrrell said the corporation was flooded with more than 374,000 calls in the first ten days after the ice storm struck.

"That is really unprecedented and certainly came with its challenges," Tyrrell said, "because it far exceeded the IT capacity that we have as a system, and also the resource capacity that went along with that."

The executives' comments follow results of a new poll that found the majority of Torontonians think power lines in the city should be buried underground.

Of the 1,105 city residents Forum Research asked whether Toronto Hydro should bury the lines in order to prevent power outages like those during the recent ice storm, 59 per cent said yes.

That opinion is most strongly-held among the oldest respondents (65 per cent) and residents of North York (68 per cent).

In his remarks Thursday, Haines said underground power lines cost seven-times more than overground ones, and it would cost approximately $15 billion to bury lines across the city.

Other highlights of the Forum Research poll include:

  • Two-thirds of respondents lost power during the ice storm (62%)
  • While 51 per cent do not believe the storm warranted a state of emergency declaration, more than a third said the call should have been made (37 per cent)
  • Forty-six per cent of respondents told pollsters they feel tree-trimming budget cuts contributed to the damage during the storm.

The Forum Research telephone survey of 1,105 Torontonians aged 18 and older was conducted on January 6th. The results based on the total sample are considered accurate within three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.