THUNDER BAY — Chippewa Park staff members are busy cleaning up after Tuesday’s storm that knocked down numerous trees and caused a portion of the park to lose power.
The park is open seven days a week and the amusement rides were in operation when the thunderstorm hit, said Tom Forsythe, supervisor of parks operations for the south side of the city.
“We think a tree hit a line out there and took out some of the power, specifically to the area that feeds the amusement rides and the pavilion, and all of a sudden we had no power,” he said.
Fortunately no one was hurt and the damage was mostly contained to the downed-trees, Forsythe noted.
“A couple of close calls, but one or two tents may have suffered some damage within the campground as well,” he said.
The only other damage was to the canopy of the boat ride.
“It kind of acted like an umbrella would in a heavy windstorm and popped a bit. One of the seams has had a tear in it, so we'll have to remove the canopy and get it repaired,” Forsythe said. “We anticipate that once we take the canopy off, we'll be able to operate the ride without the canopy and then put the canopy back on once it's repaired.”
As of 11 a.m. on Wednesday, power had yet to be restored to the amusement rides.
Forsythe said with the damage in other parts of the city, including Westfort and Parkdale neighbourhoods, he anticipates Synergy North is busy, but the power company is looking into the issue at the park as well.
“They're not able to give us an ETA at the moment but as soon as we get power up and running we'll do a quick test on the rides to make sure everything is working properly,” he said. “We hope it'll only be a short-term closure.”
Forsythe said the storm was “pretty intense” and park staff is helping the city’s forestry division to clean the park up as quickly as possible.