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Scene: Storm Aftermath
WHERE: Don River just off the Keating Channel
WHEN: Approximately 5 p.m. Sunday
WHAT: A series of severe storms crossed the province Sunday afternoon, the most extreme of which was a tornado that heavily damaged the town of Goderich, Ontario. Here in Toronto, a massive storm cluster stretching from western Mississauga to eastern end of Scarborough brought torrential rain; Environment Canada reported that upwards of 40mm fell in the city in less than 15 minutes.
All the water runoff from the storm poured down into the various rivers in the GTA, including the Don.We went to check out the mouth at around 5 p.m., and found massive piles of detritus moving into the Toronto harbour—including more than a dozen assorted soccer balls, a couple of full trees, logs, branches, garbage and bits of grass floating on water that was moving more than 10kph into the lake.
According to business owners and mariners we spoke to in the area, the city of Toronto “used to have a series of booms: large logs held together by chains near the bottom of the Don River to prevent storm detritus from entering the harbour, particularly as the stumps and branches floating under the surface are invisible to boaters at night.”
Photos by Christopher Drost.