Storm downs trees, leaves thousands without power in Winnipeg

Storm downs trees, leaves thousands without power in Winnipeg

30,000 customers without power after latest summer storm leaves trail of destruction

Thousands are without power and streets are littered with fallen trees and branches after a powerful storm ripped through southern Manitoba Wednesday night. On Thursday morning, around 30,000 customers were without power, according to a Manitoba Hydro spokesperson. Leaves and branches littered the streets and sidewalks, with some fallen trees on top of cars, fences and on power lines."We're assessing as many sites as we can and making them safe," said Manitoba Hydro spokesperson Peter Chura, adding people should call 911 if they come across any downed power lines."There's lots of lines down, there's lots of trees down on lines."He said most of the outages are within Winnipeg and "radiating outward," with maps showing outages in Portage la Prairie, Treherne and St. Adolphe. Winds reached 90 km/h in Winnipeg on Wednesday night, according to Environment Canada. Many of the outages are in the southern parts of the city, including the neighbourhoods of Charleswood, Waverley Heights and St. Vital. Chura says with so many outages, it has yet to determine when power will be restored."We're assessing and making safe as many of the outages as we can, it also helps to identify areas where we can restore the most customers at one time."