By Sue Tiffin
Published June 20 2017
More than 2000 people were still without power in Haliburton County on the afternoon of June 19 after storms that generated a tornado warning on the weekend blew through the area.
Almost 700 customers were without power from Redstone Lake past Fort Irwin. Two active outages near Drag Lake caused 410 Hydro One customers to be without power while 320 homes on Eagle Lake were affected by an outage. 110 homes were affected in the Minnicock Lake area and almost 400 customers in Algonquin Highlands. In Minden more than 30 people on Gull Lake were without power. Restoration in the South Lake Road area took place earlier that afternoon.
Restoration of all the active outages in the county was expected to be complete by 10 p.m. on June 19.
Environment Canada issued tornado warnings across the region on June 17 including in Haliburton County at about 9 p.m.
A severe thunderstorm and tornado watch in Haliburton County were issued on June 18. The area encountered strong winds thunder and lightning and hail in separate storms over the weekend.
“In Ontario a peak number of 11000 people were affected by outages on June 18” said Tiziana Baccega Rosa spokesperson for Hydro One. “Normally during a busy storm the number is up over 80000.”
Trees on power lines and broken poles were generally the cause of outages after storms according to Baccega Rosa.
Weather watches are issued when conditions are favourable for a storm while warnings are issued when severe weather is almost certain.