A massive windstorm

We had a storm go through on May 4th, with wicked winds. HydroOne features a map of those still without power. They estimate there were 508,000 affected. The storm moved through slower than they thought, and the winds whipped up to 110 km/hr. There are four dead. Terribly sad. They are just posting photos now, here are some more, from Toronto, etc. There is TorontoHydro, OttawaHydro, with their own numbers in the big cities. Two hydro workers died, clearing trees. Another man tried to move a live wire, and died. Another was hit by debris. 

Hydro One has restored approximately 370,000 customers.
There are approximately 138,000 customers still without power. 

What happened to us, you might ask? 

We were lucky. We kept our power. We lost, I thought, three shingles off the roof of the garage. I was grateful it was the garage, as it is not as high as the rest of the house! I studied some YouTube videos, and it didn't look that hard to replace them. The hard part was getting on and off the ladder. My knee, terribly bruised falling on the ice from a couple of years ago makes it difficult. But I persevered!

Once I got up there, with my tool belt holding the hammer, nail remover, extra roofing nails, and the three shingles that ended up in the BACK yard, I thought I could do it. It turns out the wind just flipped the shingles off, right up off of the roofing nails. I estimated 3 nails per shingle, and about 5 shingles. Once I was up there, I found out there were two more flipped back, but stuck to another shingle. Whoopsie.

Up I went. Dooface grabbed the camera, as I worked on the roof. Not the most flattering photos, but it is a picture! JB put some more nails in a baggie and threw it up for me.
So sad about my manicure. My client wanted me to put some on after I did hers!



The wind broke the flag pole, screwed to the flag post. It is a 1" dowel! Snapped!



In the front yard, where I've been trying to regrow the sumac field, two big ones were taken down.


We went for a drive (see below), and when we came home I thought I'd go for a walk in the back 400. We lost 3 tamarack trees, just snapped off, as well as a birch tree. I will explore the rest of the forest another day.


We went into town, and for a drive, to check the damage.  The power outage map was changing hour by hour, and they had to close highway #7, which is a major route across the province. Once they braced the posts with the trucks, they reduced the traffic to single lanes each way.



Work done, I changed the decor on our frontage to purple for Mother's Day.


Then, time for a shower. Next, laundry. Hubby offered to go get me some wine, for medicinal purposes! I was in the basement and heard footsteps, too soon for him to have returned home. It was a bit creepy, then I thought maybe I'd lost track of time, playing with the laundry.
Upstairs I went. I have a lovely smocked cotton dress I pop on after showers, when cooking dinner. Out on the porch, JB was there, with the car looking for me. You have to come see more trees down, he said. House dress and all, off I went.



Pretty old, fragile trees. We headed on down to the store, where he popped in for wine. I gave all the clerks that I knew in the store my calendars. They are good people.
Customers were talking about their damage, as well. JB explained to one of the clerks that I was up on the roof replacing shingles. He came out, then she raced out, holding the door and yelled at me, "What are you doing on the roof, woman?" I laughed, and said it was a good challenge. Off we toodled home to watch TV with our feet up!