Residents of the Edmonton-area were faced with high winds and rain Wednesday, as a massive spring storm swept through the region.

The weather started to shift late Tuesday night, as temperatures dropped, and a number of warnings were put into effect throughout much of Alberta.

Wednesday’s storm was the subject of a special weather statement from Environment Canada days before.

Edmontonians woke up Wednesday to heavy rains, and the high winds developed later – gusts of up to 100 kilometres per hour were expected, as a result, residents were advised to secure loose items on their properties.

Residents reported power outages, and downed trees and power lines throughout the area. The City is encouraging residents to call 311 to report fallen trees, dislodged manhole covers, flooded roads or traffic light issues.

EPCOR said up until 5 p.m. Wednesday, 18,000 customers were experiencing power outages, but after 5 p.m., only 1,500 were out of power.

An EPCOR spokesperson said their phone system was well beyond capacity Wednesday, so many customers calling in would have heard a busy signal, or wouldn’t have been able to get through for some time. Officials said most of the power outages were caused by high winds.

Crews are encountering issues in southwest Edmonton, EPCOR said, as electrical lines are underground, it’s estimated 1,000 people in that part of the city will be without power until early Thursday morning, and it’s difficult to determine the exact cause of those outages.

City officials said the LRT was experiencing some minor delays, and officials had received multiple reports of bus shelters being knocked over, or onto the street, and trees falling over, buses were also running on schedule, with the exception of some delays due to traffic volume.

There were some other delays on ETS routes 141 and 142, due to a fallen tree, but official said late Wednesday afternoon that the routes were back on schedule.

Officials said there was some flooding in parts of the River Valley Trails, Mill Creek was in poor condition, and the Edmonton Valley Zoo was closed for the day.

Plus, outdoor sports fields were closed for the evening due to the storm.

In addition, the high winds wreaked havoc at the Edmonton International Airport – officials tweeting that most arrivals were delayed by two hours, and some planes scheduled to land were being diverted.

As of just after 5 p.m., an airport spokesperson said the wind speeds were slowing down, and airlines were arriving and departing. However, passengers were still asked to check flight times with their airlines.

As of about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, a rainfall record from 1920 was broken in Edmonton – when 25 millimeters of rain fell, by the end of the day, more than 40 millimeters was expected to fall.

 

 

The City of Edmonton is keeping an eye on underpasses, like the underpass on Whitemud Drive at 111 Street where flash flooding has been a problem – a pilot project is in place to alert drivers that flooding is happening using digital signs.