Weblog Categories Main Books (3) Bowling (5) Computing Devices (1) Politics (26) Religion (7) Science (2) Stained Glass (1) Sudoku (60) Television (2) Toronto (15) Trains (9)  Toronto Stories The Worlds Tallest Freestanding Telecommunications Tower The Future of Subways in Toronto Update - Fall 2005 The Mobility Express? Sudoku Has Hit Toronto! What's Freecycle Really About? Of Lambs and Lions Archives June 2008 (2) April 2008 (1) March 2008 (7) February 2008 (2) January 2008 (5) December 2007 (4) November 2007 (4) October 2007 (8) June 2007 (2) October 2006 (2) July 2006 (1) May 2006 (3) April 2006 (1) March 2006 (3) February 2006 (1) January 2006 (6) December 2005 (5) November 2005 (5) August 2005 (18) July 2005 (29) June 2005 (13) May 2005 (2) April 2005 (5) March 2005 (8) February 2005 (4) 
Toronto Toronto Comments Neighborhoods Map & full index Popular pages: Chinatown Christie Pits CN Tower Eaton Center Fashion District High Park Kensington Market Liberty Street Little Italy Museum Nathan Phillips Square Queen Street West University of Toronto Yonge Street Yorkville Miscellaneous Moose in the City Curiosities Indy Weekend Murality Saxophones! Trains Word On The Street Churches: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Recommended Links 
|
Trees Felled in StormSun, 10 Jun 2007, 17:01 A couple of days ago, a storm hit Toronto. It didn't last long, but the winds were intense. I was inside at the time, preparing dinner around 5PM, when I noticed the heavy wind, and I decided I'd better bring in the blue boxes, which were starting to blow around in the driveway. When I brought the blue boxes to the side of the house, I had a glimpse of something unusual in the back yard. One of our neighbor's trees had fallen down. 
This was a tall white ash, about 25m tall. We were all darn lucky. If the tree had fallen in any other direction, it could have fallen onto one of several houses, including ours. But the bulk of top branches ended up in the back yard of our back yard neighbor. It also brought down one of their trees. But the only substantial damage was to one fence and part of a deck. But what was most serious about the accident was that the tree was resting on the power lines running over the back property line. At first, the power lines were able to support the weight of the tree. But as we watched the tree, a couple of the cables snapped and we were then without power. The Toronto Hydro workers arrived about 10:15PM to restore power to about 20 houses. This was to be a big job. By about midnight, they had cut up the tree enough to free it from the cables. They then did further trimming of branches in the vicinity of the cables before restringing the power lines. They did all this heavy and dangerous work using only flashlights for illumination. By 5AM, they were done. 
Saturday morning, we could get a good view of the fallen tree, now in pieces. In the back yard of our neighbors, the root ball was pulled out of the ground, with one section of trunk sitting on a smashed fence. Our back yard ended up with a couple more sections of trunk. Workers were at work early getting rid of a large quantity of branches in our back yard neighbor's back yard. One more thing we will have to get used to now: With the loss of one of the trees, we will now have more sunlight coming through our bedroom window early in the morning! Finally, we'd like to offer our thanks to the Toronto Hydro crew who restored our power. It's a tough and dangerous job, but it's work that has to be done, often under less than ideal conditions. Thanks, guys! Hans path: /Toronto | permanent link to this entry  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
