We survived a stereotypical stormy winter night in Timmins overnight.
Believe it or not, Environment Canada says we only got eight centimetres of snow over a 24-hour period. But the strong, gusty wind blew it around, making anything outdoors very tricky.
A utility pole caught fire at around six o’clock at Spruce St. and First Ave., leaving 22-hundred Hydro One customers south of Spruce and in other isolated pockets, in the dark – and some in the cold – for the whole evening.
Flights into and out of the Victor M. Power Airport started to be cancelled by mid-afternoon because of freezing rain down south, and the stormy weather up here. But airport manager Dave Dayment says northbound flights up the James Bay Coast weren’t affected. The runways were cleared early this morning, and everything was back to normal by about 10:00am.
Finally, the poor road conditions this morning resulted in a snow day for all four school boards right across the region.
All that winter thrown at us in one blast also made for a busy night for the Timmins Police Service.
Communications co-ordinator Marc Depatie tells My Timmins Now Dot Com that there were 75 calls for service. That includes ten motor vehicle collisions that need a police response; 15 calls for alarms that went off during power bumps and as electrticity was restored; and, of course, officers were involved in scene control with other first responders at the site of the utility pole fire that knocked out the power.