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Windstorm: One year later

Jun 19, 2018 | 11:00 PM

A whole year has passed since Red Deer and Central Alberta was struck by a devastating windstorm.

And while the event itself lasted mere minutes, its impact continues to be felt today.

Here’s a look at some of the statistics relating to the June 20, 2017 windstorm:

– 111 km/h hour winds recorded in Red Deer

– 15,000 properties without power for varying lengths of time

– Between 3000 – 5000 trees down in natural areas of the park system

– 600 City-owned trees still requiring stump removal

– 3,636 calls received by the City’s call centre

– 12x the average number of 9-1-1 calls were received during initial response

– 38 damaged power poles requiring removal and replacement

– 3,500+ metres of downed power lines

– 700 City staff involved in supporting windstorm response and recovery

– $30+ million in insurance claims (as per the Insurance Bureau of Canada)

Mayor Tara Veer and Emergency Management Coordinator Karen Mann share their thoughts on last year’s storm, what was learned and where things are at today…

Manager of The City’s EL&P department Jim Jorgensen also spoke to rdnewsNOW, and praised the cooperation of everyone involved.

“Lots of customers were faced with outages for a significant amount of time, upwards of 77 hours from start to finish for the main restoration of all of our customers,” he points out. “The way everybody responded, and not just EL&P, but the assistance we received from other departments and the public, the support fom the city was very encouraging, very unique and very much appreciated by everyone.”

Jorgensen says there are no outstanding issues with the power grid.