THUNDER BAY — Hydro One crews were still working Monday to restore power to some customers in the wake of a powerful Friday evening storm that brought down numerous trees in rural areas north of Thunder Bay.
At the peak of the resulting outages, 4,500 customers were offline in the Thunder Bay region.
A spokesperson for the utility says gusts of wind were clocked at 110 kilometres an hour.
Environment Canada issued a tornado watch for the Thunder Bay vicinity at 7:20 Friday evening.
Residents and camp-owners in the Trout Lake/One Island Lake/Hawkeye Lake and Jacques Township areas reported numerous trees uprooted and some structural and other property damage from a storm that also brought hail.
Hydro One said damage to its infrastructure was significant, with at least 20 utility poles broken and requiring replacement, and "many trees" on power lines.
It brought in crews from as far away as Timmins and Sudbury to help local staff restore power.
Most customers were back online Saturday afternoon, but additional storms that passed through that night caused further outages for some customers.
Hydro One said Monday that about 60 workers had been deployed around the clock to restore service, but crews were still making some repairs and patrolling lines to inspect for damage.
A research meteorologist with the Northern Tornadoes Project at Western University has been investigating the damage reports.
Lesley Elliott told TBNewswatch that radar imagery from Friday evening shows strong storms went through the area but there are no clear indications of strong rotation indicative of a tornado.
She said a review of the images identified an "area of interest" of about 3,300 sq. km. covering Dog Lake southeast to the Lake Superior shoreline.
Elliott said the team is interested in hearing from anyone who believes they saw something tornadic in nature, or who has photos of damage.
Information may be sent via email to ntp@uwo.ca .
