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By Tony Lofaro Tom Spears and Claire Brownell, The Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA — First came the rain on Tuesday, then came the wind on Wednesday in a severe double-whammy that caused damage throughout the Ottawa area.
“It was like a shotgun blast of wind,” said Bill Rankine, who watched a 20-metre-tall tree snap at the base and crash to the ground between two duplexes on Morris Street in the Glebe on Wednesday.
“I’ve never seen a gust of wind just roar in like that before.”
Rankine went to move his car so it wouldn’t block crews clearing the tree and got another surprise: Holmwood Avenue was a half-metre under water.
“It was garbage day in the Glebe (Wednesday), so everybody’s garbage bins and recycling boxes were strewn across the street,” he said.
While basements and roads flooded with water, phone lines at police and fire services were flooded with calls about downed power lines, felled trees and malfunctioning traffic lights. Police said they received 14 calls related to the weather on Wednesday afternoon and fire said they received 15.
About the same amount of rain fell during the downpours on Tuesday and Wednesday. David Rodgers, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said Ottawa’s east end was soggiest on Wednesday with 50-100 millimetres of rainfall recorded, while the west end received 40-50 and the downtown area was hit by 28.
What set Wednesday’s storm apart was the wind.
Gusts brought down trees and power lines across the city.
Winds of 80 km/h were recorded at the Ottawa airport just before 4 p.m., and Rodgers said Environment Canada received unconfirmed reports of funnel cloud sightings in east Ottawa and downtown.
Those winds turned a pleasant afternoon of paddleboating on Dow’s Lake into a struggle to beat past heavy waves for two women. They managed to make it to the Carleton University side of the lake unharmed by the time fire crews got to them.
The biggest wind-related headache may have been suffered by a woman on Preston Street who was knocked unconscious by an umbrella that flew up and hit her in the head, fire spokesman Marc Messier said.