Overnight storm rips through area of Remington Park

Eddie Beaune watched a tree fall to the ground during Monday night's storm at 3 a.m.

“My dog was barking his head off. He wouldn't eat,” Beaune said. “I thought maybe he usually wakes me up when he has to go to the bathroom so I open the door and he wouldn't even leave the porch.”

Storm damage in Windsor, Ont. as seen on July 16, 2024. (Bob Bellacicco/CTV News Windsor)

Beaune said it then started to rain hard. “This tree fell. And two seconds later, this flew over,” described Beaune.

“It's only been here 30 years and it was a nice tree,” explained Bill Atkinson, who said a corner tree, that fell onto Lillian Street, was planted by the city. “If you look at the stumps over here that they've cut and they're not rotten.”

A tree is seen laying on the road in the Remington Park area on July 16, 2024. (Source: Submitted)

Beaune's vehicle didn't get hit but the tree blocked his driveway.

“I was hoping it would hit it,” Beaune said with a laugh.

A couple of neighbourhood vehicles did get hit by fallen tree branches in the Remington Park area.

The storm had ENWIN crews busy attending to power outages and fallen wires. Officials said at the height of the storm, about 4,000 customers lost power.

“We started to do our restoration efforts, bringing back the major feeders, switching to isolate the problem areas,” said Jim Brown, chief operating officer of hydro, pointing out the failure was pocketed in Remington Park, South Windsor and the Sandwich areas.

He anticipated service being restored by mid-afternoon with some left offline because their line had been struck or their stack damaged.

“Let us know and we will come out and survey the situation and start the process to get you back online,” he urged the public.

The city is also working through the storm's aftermath.

“It's during these kind of events we get into the emergency-urgent situations,” said City Forester, Yemi Adeyeye, who pointed out 36 calls were taken for tree complaints.

An emergency is deemed when a tree or branches fall on a person’s car and blocks driveways or roads. An urgent case is debris on front lawns.

“So the intention is to go across the city and make sure all the emergencies are dealt with as soon as possible. Then we move into the urgent ones,” Adeyeye said.

Clean up is expected to carry on until the end of the week. Adeyeye encourages people to call 311 if they notice concerning signs on a tree, like the condition of bark or a broken branch.

“If they notice any crack on the branches, they should let us know," he said. "It's important to have some kind of review of that branch because there's a potential point of failure if something's going to break.”

Downed trees after storm in Windsor, Ont. on July 15, 2024. (CTV News Windsor)