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s Ç)~ Vol. 13, No. 1 Wedni w f2. w I esday, January 5, 1983 16 Pages Winds of up to 120 kilomnetres an hour huffed and puffed and blew these two haif-bu lit homes down last Tuesday., The homes are located in Bluegrass Meadows subdivision on Thickson Road north. The storm brought confusion and discomfort to some Whitby residents, who put up with power failures, fallen trees and an onslaught of garbage that was scattered around by the wind. -Free Press Staff Photo 7ind topples trees, poles, e.ven houses Last week's violent wind storm was a reminder to many Whitby- residents that trees, hydro poles and even houses are flot im- mune to nature's wrath. Although there were no major accidents re- ported in Whitby as a resuit of the Dec'. 28 storm, many isolated in- cidents added up to an evening of confusion as the wind did its best to tear a strip off the town. In Bluegrass Mea- dows, a new subdivision on Thickson Road Nor- thi, two haif-built houses were toppled by winds that reached 120 kilo- meters per hour. The houses face an open field to the north and are situated on a hili with littie protection. A large tree at Brock and Mary Streets was blown over by the wind, damaging two vehicles parked near by. Fire department and hydro crews answered 19 cails between 4 p.m. and 2 a.m. last Tuesday, repairing damnaged ser- vice wires in many residences. The Whitby Hydro Electric Commission reported no major blackouts, but several Whitby homes were without power for short periods while service lines and fuses were repaired. "There were no big transformer problems,"1 Hydro Director Tom May told the Free Press last week. "It was mostly individual ser- vice lines and fuses." Perhaps the most widespread nuisance was the piles of garbage that were strewn about the town during the storm. Apparently many Whitby residents didn't know garbage collection was cancelled for Christmas week, and left bundies of garbage for the wind to scatter. During the most vio- lent part of the storm between 4 and 6-p.m. onj Tuesday, many sections of Whitby resembledj garbage dumps, with cans and green garbage bags running amok on the streets. Most of the loose gar- No garbage collectionI against wire mnesh fen- ces throughout the town. The storm blew itself out by early Wednesday morning, when temn- the freezing point. Clean-up crews spent much of Wednesday clearing branches and garbage from the Last week's wind storm aggravated what many Whitby residents already had trouble dealing with - the lack of garbage collection in the town during the Christmas week. The Whitby Free Press received several calls from residents who, unaware that col-, lection had been can- celled, had their gar- bage spread across the countryside by strong winds. These callers feit Christmas week was a particularly bad time to cancel garbage collec- tion because many peo- pIe have company or leave town for the week. Dick Kuwahara, director of public works for the Town of Whitby, said this year was the first timne collection has been cancelled comn- pletely during the holi- day week. "It's always a pro- blem between Christ- mias and New- Year's because the union has so many holidays," Kuwa- hara told the Free Press. "We ran ads in the three local newspapers, but people stili put their garbage out. " He said the decision to shut down for the week was based on the high cost of payrng workers overtime for working on holidays, and on the fact that the landfill site where the garbage is taken was closed for two of the five days. In the past years, five days of garbage collec- tion has been completed in two or three days by town employees. "We feit it might be worth trying this year because there were five holidays," Kuwahara said. He said the town will take a close look at whether it will follow the same procedure next year. op am f >Mm .9 a a