CTV News | Vancouver assesses damage from latest storm

Top Stories -   

Vancouver assesses damage from latest storm

Viewer

CTV News Video

CTV Newsnet: Vancouver continues clean up
CTV Vancouver: St. John Alexander on the damage
CTV Vancouver: Janet Dirks on the devastated park

Font-size:      Share  Print

CTV.ca News Staff

Date: Sat. Jan. 6 2007 11:31 PM ET

Vancouverites spent their Saturday in what is becoming a familiar ritual: Tallying up the damage from a powerful storm.

Stanley Park, the city's crown jewel, had more trees knocked down by Friday night's windstorm.

While about one dozen were removed from roadways, "there could be very many more that came down in the centre of the park, and we just haven't had an opportunity to determine the damage at this point," Ian Robertson, chair of the Vancouver Park Board, told CTV Vancouver.

About three weeks ago, the park lost up to 3,000 trees from a vicious windstorm (there are an estimated one million trees in the 400-hectare park). Some areas of the park looked like loggers had clear-cut them.

People who came to view the latest damage used words like "gobsmacked" and "disaster."

Hanging trees and branches made trails through the park dangerous, but many people could be seen ignoring warnings to stay out of trails through the woods.

Robertson said he understood why people might ignore those warnings.

"People have an emotional connection to Stanley Park, and people feel like a part of their city -- a part of them -- is wounded."

The additional damage wasn't restricted to Stanley Park.

Lynn Canyon recreational area in North Vancouver was closed to visitors because of a number of downed power lines.

An estimated 50,000 homes and businesses were left without power in the storm's wake.

"We've had snowstorms, we've had power outages, we've had rain -- bad winds," said Lynn Boden, listing the way the weather gods have punished Vancouverites this fall.

The Bednard family had electricity, but they also had a downed tree causing havoc for their North Vancouver home.

"You kind of think, 'these trees are pretty big; hopefully they don't crash through the whole house'," said Margaret Bednard.

While the home didn't suffer a direct hit, heir deck was badly damaged, and a trampoline lies under a fallen tree -- as does a car. Because they only use the car in the summertime, it isn't insured right now.

"We'll see whether it's worth fixing or not. It may just turn into scrap iron," said Gordon Bednard.

He was philosophical about the damage.

"In the grand scheme of things, we're going to be fine. It could have been worse, it could have been a lot more damage, somebody could have been hurt," he said.

For Saturday night, there are warnings of high winds hitting the Greater Victoria region and the west coast of Vancouver Island.

However, Mother Nature is giving the Lower Mainland the night off: There are no weather warnings for that area.

With a report from CTV Vancouver's St. John Alexander

Share with your social Network:

 

Advertisement

Contest

User Tools

About the tools

Need to get in touch with CTV? You can email the CTV web team using the 'Feedback' button.

Share it with your network of friends

Share this CTV article or feature with your friends. Click on the icon for your favourite social networking or messaging system, and follow the prompts.

Share this article with Facebook

Share this article with Digg

Share this article with Newsvine

Share this article with delicious

Share this article.
Send Email

Share this article with Twitter

Share this article with StumbleUpon

Share this article with Reddit

Share this article with Yahoo! Buzz