Crews worked to restore power to thousands in Toronto on Thursday after a severe storm battered the city, drenching some neighbourhoods in more than 100 millimetres of rain and knocking down trees as well as utility lines.
Toronto Hydro said it had restored power to about 90 per cent of those who lost it during the storm, with roughly 6,000 still in the dark Thursday morning. Provincial power supplier Hydro One said fewer than 40,000 customers remained offline as of mid-morning.
Localized flooding forced the closure of some major roadways, including parts of Yonge Street and the Don Valley Parkway, at the height of the storm and suspended subway service in some areas during the Wednesday afternoon rush hour.
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow praised public servants and emergency responders who fielded an “overwhelming” number of calls and reassured residents that the city had planned and co-ordinated its response ahead of the storm.
“The storm has passed and I want to assure the people of Toronto that we were prepared. Our teams were co-ordinated and we will keep working until every road is clear and every resident has power back,” she said at a news conference at city hall.
The Don Valley Parkway and the Canadian National Exhibition were open Thursday morning, and transit was running as scheduled, as were city-run summer camps, she said.
Crews will be working hard to ensure parks, outdoor pools and public beaches are safe and ready for the Labour Day long weekend, the mayor said.
“To everyone who sheltered in place, checked in on a neighbour, or stayed off flooded roads last night: thank you,” she said. “That’s what got us through this safely together.”
Toronto officials said they received roughly 1,000 requests for service, while fire officials reported just shy of 1,500 calls over a 24-hour period, which they said was their second-highest call volume in a day, after the 2013 ice storm.
City manager Paul Johnson said the storm was unique in that it dumped large amounts of rain across the city rather than in isolated areas.
“We’ve not seen an event like this that’s brought this amount of water across the city of Toronto,” he said.
“Yes, there was some wide variation, anywhere from about 11 millimetres through to 110 millimetres of rain, but wide areas of the city received large amounts of rain,” along with hail and powerful winds, he said.
“Just to put it into context, that’s what we would declare as a 100-year storm.”
A similar storm hammered the city in 2005, spurring work around flood mitigation and protection, and “those have been working,” he added.
Crews were also out in nearby Vaughan to deal with flooding, water ponding, downed trees and other storm-related issues, the city said in a statement.
“Some roads remain closed, and we ask everyone to continue to use caution and avoid affected areas,” Mayor Steven Del Duca said on social media.
The intense weather brought torrential rain, large hail and the risk of a tornado to wide swaths of southern Ontario as skies darkened over downtown Toronto and hail pummelled neighbourhoods further north.
Video on social media showed large hail falling and downpours flooding vehicles and bus stations, sending people running for cover.
David Sills, director of the Northern Tornadoes Project at Western University, said there was “no credible evidence” at this stage that a tornado occurred as part of Wednesday’s storms, but the organization continues to receive reports and analyze them.
A survey team was heading Thursday for the community of Brodhagen, in the municipality of West Perth, where the worst damage appeared to have occurred, Sills said.
“The team will have a lot of area to cover in the next couple of days,” he said in an email.
The storm also caused flight delays and cancellations at Toronto’s Pearson airport, and left some serious damage to Rogers Stadium, a 50,000-capacity music venue in the city’s north end.
The airport said operations were “returning to normal” Thursday morning but encouraged travellers to check with their airline as some flight schedules were affected by the storm. Pearson received about 40 millimetres of rain during the storm, it said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 3, 2026.
