Owen Sound’s Fire Chief says firefighters in the city have been busy responding to calls related to Thursday’s storm
Phil Eagleson says there were 16 calls in the span of 13 hours, starting shortly after 7 Thursday evening.
“All the calls were weather related,” says Eagleson.
He says they responded to a tree that had fallen on a house, downed power lines, a ruptured propane tank that had been hit by a fallen tree, a rescue of people trapped in an elevator due to a power outage, a natural gas leak, and a fire at Heritage Place mall. Eagleson says other calls included fire alarm activations and electrical fires.
The mall fire started in an HVAC unit on the roof. Eagleson says it was caused by the wind disrupting the unit, causing a friction situation and it took several hours for that to eventually start a fire at around 7 Friday morning. “Crews were able to respond and contain the fire to the exterior of the building,” says Eagleson.
Witnesses say there were some visible flames and black smoke coming from the mall just after 7 a.m.
He says the damage to the mall is estimated at about $50,000. That damage isn’t expected to affect businesses because it’s external. A Heritage Place spokesperson confirms the mall is open for its regular scheduled hours today, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Meanwhile a house in the Alpha Street area, where many of the calls came from, according to Eagleson, had some pretty serious damage from a fallen tree. “They weren’t able to stay there last night, the family. Between roof repair and broken windows.”
He says there was damage to vehicles and signs as well, and the area around St. Mary’s Hill on the east side saw notable damage.
Eagleson says there were no severe injuries reported during their calls.
Meanwhile, the Northern Tornadoes Project says it has received many reports of wind damage from Thursday’s storm.
They said Friday morning, the most concentrated area of damage they had been made aware of was in Owen Sound and a Northern Tornadoes Project team would be investigating.
