City of Ottawa to begin removing debris this week as cleanup continues from Friday's storm

Crews in Ottawa and Gatineau continued to slowly restore power to customers Sunday evening, as the cleanup continues from Friday's severe thunderstorm that hit the region.

Meantime, city of Ottawa crews will begin the removal of tree debris in neighbourhoods and pickup leaf and yard waste from homes.

The storm with tennis ball-sized hail, wind gusts up to 70 km/h and heavy rain damaged trees and hydro infrastructure across the region.

Hydro Ottawa reported 220 customers were still without power on Sunday morning.

"We are treating this as a multi-day restoration event throughout the weekend with efforts now focused on restoring power to small areas and individual outages," the utility said on its website.

The utility initially reported more than 13,000 customers in Ottawa were without power Friday night.

Hydro Ottawa reported an outage involving 1,755 customers in Kitchissippi and Bay wards Sunday evening, but provided no information about the cause of the outage.

Hydro Quebec reported 402 customers were still without power in the Aylmer sector of Gatineau Sunday evening, down from 1,500 customers in the morning.

City of Ottawa officials say Forestry Staff have been "busy" this weekend clearing debris, and debris cleanup will begin on Monday.

"We have been completing road patrols to identify streets and sidewalks requiring sweeping operations," Alain Gonthier, general manager of Public Works, said in a memo to Council. Bay Coun. Theresa Kavanagh's office shared the memo with constituents. 

"We are also identifying catch basins that may require cleaning to ensure functionality of the system in advance of upcoming precipitation events."

Gonthier says a small number of parks have damage following the storm, and parks maintenance teams will complete the cleanup this week.

City staff will pickup tree debris from homes this week through the Leaf and Yard Waste Pickup.

"We will continue working safely and as efficiently as operationally possible," Gonthier said.

"Our focus for this weekend and into next week will be to continue to remove tree debris, identify areas where street sweeping is required and ensure catch basins are free of debris. We are also assessing if a special debris collection will be required, and we will keep you informed."