Beloved Notre-Dame-de-Grce Park devastated by strong winds

Winds raging at more than 110 kilometres per hour took down dozens of trees in Notre-Dame-de-Grce Park Tuesday afternoon.

"I'm on the eighth floor of a building and I saw a tree fly by my window," said Notre-Dame-de-Grce resident Carolyn Seguin.

The park, located at the corner of Girouard Avenue and Sherbrooke Street West, is locally known as GirouardPark.

According to Environment Canada, the storm was likely the result of a microburst that only lasted a matter of minutes.

• Powerful winds rips apart trees, smashing cars and blocking roads in Montreal

City data shows that the park is home to more than 100 trees, many of them Silver Maples, Norway Maples and Red Oaks.

There are 10 trees witha diametre measuring above one metre. The data doesn't specify how old the trees are. It's not yet clear how many trees have been toppled. Benches and picnic tables were also damaged.

"This is just devastating to see all these old trees," said Quebec Immigration Minister Kathleen Weil, who stopped by and offeredborough mayor Russell Copeman help from the provincial government, if needed.

Weil represents theNotre-Dame-de-Grceriding.

PeterMcQueen, NDG citycouncillor, toldCBC'sHomerunthat emergency crews and city workers are on the ground trying to clean up the debris.

"It's thatold part of NDG where the trees are big and oldand have a lot of difficulty in a situation like this."

McQueensaid that the park is the main site for NDG Arts Week and that it would remain to be seen how the fallen trees would affect the programming.

While some residents pegged the extent of the damage to the park's trees on a possible lack of maintenance,Copemansaid it was too early to tell if maintenance was the issue. He said the weather event was exceptional.

"I'm absolutely not going to get involved in what tree came down where, under what circumstances," he said. "Our focus is cleaning up, making sure that people are safe, and we'll do a post-mortem to see if we can do better in the future."

In April, part of the parkwasofficiallyinauguratedas Place deVimyas part of acommemoration ofthe 100th anniversary of the battle ofVimyRidge.