Hundreds still without power after Monday storms

About700 Hydro One customers were still without powerFriday morningafter a series ofpowerful thunderstorms swept through eastern Ontarioon Monday and some could remain without power until Aug. 1.

That number is down from the 1,500 who were without power on Thursday.

Hydro One spokeswoman Marylena Stea said hydro crewshave beenmaking "good progress."

The rest of the affected customers live around Calabogie, Ont., and Stea said their power should be returning soon.

But cottagers around Norway Lake, the hardest hit area, will likely remain without power until next week.

Roof torn off timber-frame home

On Thursday, Norway Lake resident Don Wagorn said the sky darkened when the storm hit, the wind picked up and the rain came crashing down like "a wall of water."

"I was more shocked and the noise, I couldn't believe the noise. It was like a freight train, everything shaking," said Wagorn.

"On the far side of the roof is damage. The trees were picked up from the far side of the building and whipped over the top.The contractor was in this morning and straightened out my roof and patched it up to keep the rain out," he said.

Wagorn's neighbours were not so lucky. Their timber-frame home will likely be torn down after a portion of the roof lifted off and dropped some 20 metres away.

"I was looking out the window on this side and the next thing I know the roof is coming off and then everything went black," said Wagorn.

Environment Canada says 'macroburst' hit area

Hundreds, possibly thousands of white pine trees snapped around Norway Lake, and cottages and other property were damaged after Environment Canada meteorologists said a 10-kilometreswath of landaround Calabogie was hitMonday by a macroburst, a column of sinking air that swoops down over a large area.

Macrobursts can bring winds upwards of 100 kilometres per hour.

At Madawaska Township's main offices on Thursday morning, Mayor Peter Emon said crews are having to drill into solid rock around Norway Lake to reinstall hydro lines, a type of work that takes a lot of time.

Meanwhile, about 200 forestry workers from Quebec and Ontario are assisting with clean-up efforts.

Environment Canada investigators were surveying damagethis weekin a number of regions in eastern Ontario where unconfirmed tornadoes were sighted.

But the survey teams found no evidence of tornadoes, which tend to leave a long corridor or convergent pattern of damage. Instead, in the Calabogie region they found a wide area about 10 kilometres where most of the trees knocked down had fallen in the same direction.

Meteorologist Peter Kimbell said this was consistent with a macroburst, a larger version of the same phenomenon that collapsed the main stage at Ottawa's Bluesfest music festival last year.

No evidence of tornado

Kimbell said the broad line of winds exceeding 100 kilometresper hour resulted in damage over a huge area, but was not a tornado.

Environment Canada survey teams also found evidence of smaller microbursts in the Mississippi Lake, Munster and Richmond areas, and said damage further west near Golden Lake was also much smaller than in Calabogie.

The storms swept through a wide swath of eastern Ontario Monday, knocking out power from Barry's Bay in the west to Cornwall and Alexandria in the east.

A week earlier, two tornadoes touched down in eastern Ontario after a similar group of storms rolled through the region. One hit the area of Athens, near Brockville, and another touched down around Summerstown, east of Cornwall.

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