Toronto fire crews rescued people trapped on scaffolding and in elevators after '100

Toronto fire crews rescued people trapped on scaffolding and in elevators after '100-year storm'

Cleanup underway after severe GTA thunderstorm

The GTA is cleaning up after Wednesday’s powerful thunderstorm, which brought torrential rain, damaging winds and large hail. Here's a quick recap of where things are at in the aftermath nearly 24 hours later.

Power has been fully restored in Vaughan.

The number of outages in southern Ontario has been steadily dropping throughout the day, though the number of customers without power is still north of 20,000, according to the Hydro One outage map.

In Toronto, outages are still roughly what officials detailed in this morning's news conference: approximately 6,000 customers, down from a peak of 65,000.

There is currently "no credible evidence" at this stage that a tornado occurred as part of yesterday's storms, said David Sills, director of the Northern Tornadoes Project at Western University. But the organization continues to receive reports and analyze them.

A survey team was heading Thursday for the community of Brodhagen, in the municipality of West Perth, where the worst damage appeared to have occurred, Sills said.

"The team will have a lot of area to cover in the next couple of days," he said in an email.

Rogers Stadium seriously damaged by GTA storm

The storm left some serious damage to Rogers Stadium, a 50,000-capacity music venue in the city's north end. Live Nation said no one was injured and they are assessing the extent of the damage.

You can see in the video above that pieces that were once part of a Rogers Stadium sign have been strewn across the venue.

The open-air concert venue is temporary, built in nine months and meant to be demolished around 2030. The seasonal structure is the city's largest outdoor venue, with a capacity of 50,000.

Since it opened last summer, the stadium has hosted some of Toronto's biggest music events, including U.K. band Coldplay's four sold-out shows in 2025 and American singer Bruno Mars's five-night run in May.

The outdoor stadium has been dogged by bad weather before. Mars's last show was rescheduled due to heavy rain, while fans of the Korean pop band BTS were drenched by torrential downpours just two weekends ago, when the group played two shows as part of their only stop in Canada.

In a Facebook group, fans expressed shock at the impact of yesterday's storm. "I’m super glad BTS was last week!" one said. "The rain was bad the first night, but not THIS bad. Geez."

This photo shows rows of blue seats that have been toppled over, careening into folding chairs and garbage cans on the floor level.

The stadium last hosted Chris Stapleton on Sept. 1, the night before the storm. The venue's next show is set for Sept. 16, hosting AC/DC's Power Up tour, and it's not yet clear whether that will be affected by the damage.

Rogers Stadium in North York took some "significant damage" in yesterday's storm, a Live Nation Canada spokesperson said, though no one was injured.

"We are currently assessing the extent of the damage and will provide further information as it becomes available," they said.

Now that the storm is over, Toronto has three big priorities in its cleanup response, said city manager Paul Johnson.

The first is restoring city services, particularly in recreation, just ahead of the Labour Day long weekend, like indoor pools. There's also debris and roadway cleanup, which will involve working with Toronto Hydro to restore downed power lines and fallen trees. Then, there is 311 assistance, to help residents with specific needs like basement flooding.

But the good news: "Toronto is back to business in all its senses today," Johnson said, "with only a few areas that we are working through."

Wednesday was the wettest Sept. 2 that Toronto has ever seen, said David Phillips, a climatologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Downtown Toronto received about 60 millimetres of rain, with some unofficial measuring vessels collecting more than 100 millimetres.

"That's almost a month's worth of rain," Phillips said.

Climate change is making thunderstorms more severe, he said, noting that last night's storm could be a preview of the new normal 30 years from now.

– With files from CBC's Andre La Rosa-Rodriguez

Ontario is in contact with municipalities about last night's storm and is ready to help, Premier Doug Ford said in a post on X.

About 65,000 Toronto Hydro customers had lost power at the storm's peak; that figure is now down to about 6,000, said Dan Smart, Toronto Hydro's vice-president of distribution operations.

In addition to public safety, the utility is prioritizing the safety of its workers who are repairing extensive damage caused by large trees and branches. Smart said he has heard reports of trees eight feet in diameter resting on lines and taking down poles.

"We do have a really, really high volume of calls that we are still working our way through," he said as he asked for the public's patience.

Smart advised anyone encountering downed wires to stay 10 metres back and report them through the Toronto Hydro dispatch line at 416-542-8000. (Press 1 for downed wires and power outages.)