THUNDER BAY -- The city of Thunder Bay is recovering in the wake of a major snowstorm which hit the region earlier this week.
Twenty-nine centimetres, according to Environment Canada, hit the city of Thunder Bay between Thursday and Friday leaving approximately 13,000 without power due to damaged hydro lines.
“We started having issues at about 8 [p.m.] on Thursday night,” said Thunder Bay Hydro’s customer supervisor Amanda Leonzio.
Leonzio said the power outages were caused by damaged power lines and a motor vehicle collision. The majority of those affected had power restored.
"Over the past 24 hours, our call volume has been roughly over 100 responses," platoon chief John Kaplanis said. “Approximately three quarters of those has been devoted to calls of a potentially hazardous nature due to hydro wires down.”
Thunder Bay Fire Rescue issued a release early Friday morning, saying they were experiencing delays due to a large volume of calls.
The 29 centimetres of snow that has fallen since early Thursday morning has also slowed emergency services' response times as they navigate snow-covered and icy roadways.
City roads manager Brad Adams said crews were stretched to their maximum capacity dealing with major roads on Thursday.
They resumed work at 2 a.m. Friday morning.
“We finished the arterial collective roads probably around 8 a.m. [Friday] morning,” he said. “We’ve moved into residential street plowing. We’re hoping to get one side open on all residential streets today. That’s the plan right now.”
Crews will continue to work on residential roads, and are also hoping to have sidewalks of major roads completed by Sunday.
According to Thunder Bay Hydro, as of 10 a.m. on Friday, approximately 5,000 remained without power.
Thunder Bay Hydro says they’re expecting restoration to be completed by the afternoon.
Communities east along the shore of Lake Superior experienced heavier amounts of snow, with a reported 40 centimetres around Marathon, ON., according to Environment Canada.
As locals dig out of the snow, they will be forced to deal with a bitter cold that should last until Saturday afternoon.
“We’re going to see a plunge in temperatures into the -20's Saturday morning, with wind chills up to -30 C,” said Gerald Chang, a meteorologist Environment Canada.
“The system that brought the snow grew in size and had a high amount of intensity. Once that air mass leaves is when you’re left with very cold temperatures.”
The city will then brace for more snow, with 10-15 centimetres expected to touch down on Sunday.
