There are reports of power outages and damage across the GTA after a quick spring storm swept across the region, bringing down trees and causing flooding.
The downpour started at around 4:30 p.m. and lasted less than 30 minutes. However social media was quickly flooded with images of fallen trees and water pouring indoors.
Videos posted to Twitter from Toronto Eaton Centre showed heavy flooding inside the mall, with water pouring through ceiling lights and covering the mall’s floors.
The storm came as the city sat under a severe thunderstorm warning from Environment Canada. The warning ended shortly before 5 p.m.
Still Toronto Hydro said that as of 10 p.m., there were approximately 9,000 customers without power across the city.
“We do have crews on the ground that are attending to scenes as quickly as possible, but as you see in those pictures we’ve got a lot of damage throughout the city,” Toronto Hydro spokesperson Tori Gass told CP24. “The outages are scattered. We’ve got lots of forestry damage. Trees have come down, branches, wires. We’re just reminding everybody to stay well back. Report them. We’re doing what we do to attend the scenes, but it might take some time to get to everywhere in the city.”
Gass said that the silver lining with this particular storm is that it passed by very fast, which means that crews should be able to get out quickly to do repairs, whereas more protracted storms prevent crews from carrying out repairs.
There is no estimate so far for how long it will take to restore most customers.
