Storm blows through, taking down line of utility poles

A short summer windstorm blew through southwestern Ontario on Thursday, July 9, tearing down a series of four utility poles along Imperial Road in Malahide, north of Aylmer at around 4 p.m.

A short summer windstorm blew through southwestern Ontario on Thursday, July 9, tearing down a series of four utility poles along Imperial Road in Malahide, north of Aylmer at around 4 p.m. Outages related to the storm affected more than 6,000 customers at one point according to Hydro One. Locally, the larger base of affected customers was back on the grid by 9 p.m. Thursday evening, while several hundred of those more local to the incident were without power throughout the night and well into Friday. Canada Trailers Manufacturing Unlimited and Clovermead Adventure Farm are two business located near to the downed poles, and both say they were without power from late Thursday and most of Friday.

Canada Trailers experienced vehicle and trailer damage from the storm, while Clovermead did not. Rich Thiessen, vice president of Canada Trailers, said the utility poles fell on and damaged several trailers and vehicles in the front parking lot. Mr. Thiessen said he and his coworkers had to remain indoors at the business out of concern for live wires, until hydro crews cut power to the lines.

Canada Trailers was closed on Friday, reopening over the weekend. Mr. Thiessen said a few drivers came in late Friday to prepare for the next day, but they didn’t open to customers that day, as it was too late in the day when power came back on to reopen. The owner of the Clovermead, Christy Hiemstra, said the business remained open Friday despite the outage, as she was was thankful to borrow a generator from a nearby farm to maintain enough power for core operations.

“If we didn’t have our friend from Skipwell Farms’ generator,” Clovermead wouldn’t have had power at the entrance building, said Ms. Hiemstra. Most of the adventure farm was unaffected due to it being primarily of outdoor play attractions requiring little or no power, with visitors only missing only the splash pad and a few food options. Clovermead sent out emails to customers that morning, warning them about the lack of power.

Ms. Hiemstra said customers were understanding, even joking, “We should have pulled out the pioneer clothes.” Malahide Fire Chief Jeff Spoor said firefighters were on scene until just after 9 p.m. on Thursday, and hydro workers were there through the night into Friday. Imperial Road was opened to traffic later Friday afternoon.