Ontario ice storm 2013

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Youngbuck20

Youngbuck20

ArboristSite Guru
Joined
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Dalrymple, Ont, Canada
I can't find any other threads on this topic yet so my bad if their already is. Just before Christmas southern ontario and parts of Quebec got slammed with an ice storm. Hundreds of thousands of people out of power though Christmas and I believe their may be still some without. I was shipped down to Brampton to help the clean up. I can confidently say that 80% of the trees in the city had minimum one branch broken on it and of that 80% at least 50% of those trees will need to be removed. Those numbers are even a bit generous. Roads and sidewalks impassable, ash trees looked like someone just stomped on them, soft wood trees (not conifers) were bent in half with tips frozen into the ground. It was a sight of awe to say the least. I was with my FD armed with pole saws cleaning sidewalks and roads. Chipping won't be or awhile I imagine. We spent 5 days there and many other companies did the same or more. The hotel parking lot was full of bucket trucks and chippers, some from Quebec, Manitoba, ny, Windsor, and Sudbury. I'm sure others on here can relate since I know some guys are from the Toronto area. Anyways here's some pics I took.
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One of the reasons we shut down for the winter. It's no fun working in it. Big bucks to be made in this kind of event but I would rather stay warm. The crazy part is I'm in Trenton, Ontario and we got the most freezing rain out of the whole province but we got off easy. I have maples in my front yard that had a solid 1 inch of ice on branches that were only 1/4 inch diameter. A lot of Toronto people have had no power for 8 days. It's a balmy -32 right now here lol.
 
-37 tonight! The ice falling from the lines and street lights cut likely knock you out. I had ice bouncing off my bucket with every cut I made. I don't think any place got it worse than Brampton/Mississauga. Loooooooots of money to be made. If I had a company I know I'd be tryin to get in!


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Been working like crazy. Took Christmas Day off and a few days at New Years. Securing several jobs every day. More than we're doing, so the list is piling up. Triaging the work in order or importance. Lost a big carne job because we couldn't get to it in time. Oh well...... Lots more to do. We'll probably make more $, but it's more fun to play with the big equipment.

Was expecting it to be slow this winter. Man, has it been crazy. Customers have been reasonable though. They've been Ok when I tell them that I can't get to their tree that is in a couple of neighbours back yards for a few weeks. They're just glad to have the power back.

Heard on the news today that the City of Toronto has figured that their cost for cleaning up the trees will be around $75 million. That doesn't even factor in what homeowners are going to spend.

I feel bad for some of the homeowners. Hard to budget for this.... that and it being around Christmas.
 
Youngbuck20 said:
-37 tonight! The ice falling from the lines and street lights cut likely knock you out. I had ice bouncing off my bucket with every cut I made. I don't think any place got it worse than Brampton/Mississauga. Loooooooots of money to be made. If I had a company I know I'd be tryin to get in!


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Click to expand...

We had a crew out at a customers in Brampton. They said it was pretty devastated. Those Ash weren't long for this world with EAB and all anyways. Birch were hit pretty hard as well.

We're already booking work for spring out of this storm as the structure of a lot of trees has been compromised. (A lot of Manitoba maples - box elders or maple ash as they're referred to in the US.)

Realizing how many of my "cottage customers" live in the city. :)
 
squad143 said:
We had a crew out at a customers in Brampton. They said it was pretty devastated. Those Ash weren't long for this world with EAB and all anyways. Birch were hit pretty hard as well.

We're already booking work for spring out of this storm as the structure of a lot of trees has been compromised. (A lot of Manitoba maples - box elders or maple ash as they're referred to in the US.)

Realizing how many of my "cottage customers" live in the city. :)
Click to expand...

Ya I'd say Mother Nature took over ash removals lol. I was surprised at the number of broken branches on the sunburst locusts. The Norway maples and crimson kings stood up well. Willows destroyed and uprooted.

Wonder if that $75 mil is for just Toronto or gta as well?? One of the guys I was workin with met a customer of his that has a cottage up in Huntsville. He's def a city boy though. Moved his hands like he was rapping or something, bling hangin off him hahahaha


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Been working pretty much non stop since the storm hit, 16 hour days, came home xmas morning to see my wife and son and headed back out the door, now that everyone has power restored we're doing hazard and hanger removal throughout mississauga, home owners have been gracious for the most part, with the exception of a few.
 
Komitet said:
Been working pretty much non stop since the storm hit, 16 hour days, came home xmas morning to see my wife and son and headed back out the door, now that everyone has power restored we're doing hazard and hanger removal throughout mississauga, home owners have been gracious for the most part, with the exception of a few.
Click to expand...

We didn`t get squat from that storm, even though they said we were going to get spanked.

We got thwacked last July, though. Thirteen straight days of emergency calls. On the fourteenth day I told the boss to SIUHA, I`m staying in bed. Was silly tired and didn`t want to have a silly tired accident. Took a few days off and then jumped back into it.

Hope all you guys over there are doing well. :cool:
 
Komitet said:
Been working pretty much non stop since the storm hit, 16 hour days, came home xmas morning to see my wife and son and headed back out the door, now that everyone has power restored we're doing hazard and hanger removal throughout mississauga, home owners have been gracious for the most part, with the exception of a few.
Click to expand...

That's all Brampton had is doing too. Stuff on the road/sidewalk and hangers. I expected a city of pissed off people but everyone was thanking us and very polite. People did timmies runs for us or brought out a pot of coffee.

He's something else eh Dave, funny thing is he will be re-elected.

Jeff I'm mailing you an iceball!

This is what I'm looking at for snow Jeff, right beside me.
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It was 71 here today but about to get MUCH colder. You don't think much about where we are here just east of Dallas getting an ice storm but we actually had a bad one back in 1967. I was only six but I remeber Dad working for 45 min. to get his old '55 chevy de-iced enough to get to town. The power stayed out for over a week.
 
mckeetree said:
It was 71 here today but about to get MUCH colder. You don't think much about where we are here just east of Dallas getting an ice storm but we actually had a bad one back in 1967. I was only six but I remeber Dad working for 45 min. to get his old '55 chevy de-iced enough to get to town. The power stayed out for over a week.
Click to expand...
I lived in San Angelo when I was a kid, it snowed 3" there one night and the shut every thing down. EVERYTHING! Most of my buddys had never seen snow, so I, of course, had to teach them the fine art of throwing snow balls at cars. It was a epic day, till about noon, and all the snow was gone, by 5 that night, we were swimming in a back yard pool! Can u say extreme weather! I remember my step dad saying that it had been over 100 years since they had measurable snow there, not sure if that is true, but I believe it.
 
Youngbuck20 said:
They are saying 10-15 cm of snow w chance of freezing rain here. I feel like its snowed or been 30 below every damn day.


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I hear ya. It's was -30 a lot over the past few weeks. Not much snow though. Up to +5 tomorrow and then back to -20 the day after.

Good luck to you. We'll see what happens with this storm today.
 

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