Damages from May derecho in Ontario, Quebec now top $1 billion
Global News
Repair bills from the cluster of wind storms that pummeled southern Ontario and western Quebec in May are now over $1 billion.
OTTAWA — Repair bills from the cluster of wind storms that pummeled southern Ontario and western Quebec in May are now over $1 billion, and with contractors stretched thin the recovery will last well into next summer.
As recovery crews face another colossal restoration job in the aftermath of post-tropical storm Fiona in the Atlantic provinces, the contractors who step in when Mother Nature lays down her wrath cannot keep up.
Kyle Douglas, a co-owner at the recovery contracting firm CRCS DKI in Oshawa, Ont., fit an interview into his day this week in between meetings about whether he had crews or equipment he could send to Atlantic Canada, and negotiations with a company that specializes in booking accommodation and travel for disaster recovery workers.
“We’ve definitely seen a frequency uptick of weather events, ‘cats’ is what we call them in our industry,” said Douglas.
“Cats” is short for catastrophic events. Douglas said it’s not unheard of for disaster recovery crews to go from one event to the next. After a major flood hit Calgary in late June 2013, the industry mobilized to head to Alberta only to be called back a month later, when downtown Toronto was underwater.
Douglas said that is happening more often.
“This is something we got to get our heads around for sure,” he said.
Fiona is believed to be the strongest storm ever to hit Atlantic Canada. The straight line of heavy wind storms that hit Ontario and Quebec on May 21 wasn’t the most intense wind storm in Canada, but it was the first time a storm of that magnitude swept through the most densely populated corridor of the country.
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