Red Deer storm aftermath: $150K in costs so far; 400 properties still without power

The City of Red Deer says 400 properties are still without power Thursday afternoon after a violent windstorm hit central Alberta earlier this week. Officials said the tracked cost up to this point is well over $150,000, but “that is just the beginning.”

In an update on its website, the city says it could be another two days before electricity is restored to everyone.

“When the emergency management committee, which is a committee of council, declared the local state of emergency, we initiated the life of that, under provincial statute, is for a week,” Mayor Tara Veer said Thursday afternoon. “We will keep that in effect, likely until there is full power restoration throughout the city.”

Red Deer city manager Craig Curtis told Global News about 30 per cent of the city lost power due to the storm.

“It also downed about 15 power lines, hundreds of trees, as well as millions of property damage,” Curtis said Thursday morning. “At this stage, about five per cent of our city is still without power, up to another 48 hours, because of those major power lines in the southeast.

“It was a very major event in terms of wind in the city. The communities rallied; there’s been a remarkable recovery effort by staff and the RCMP and we’re looking forward to hopefully completing the event within the next 24 to 48 hours.”

Homes were damaged and trees were uprooted Tuesday evening when wind gusts of more than 100 km/h hit.

“Emergency Operations went to Environment Canada and they confirmed that it was a ‘straight wind’ in a band across the city and the wind speed was up to 112 kilometres an hour,” Veer said.

WATCH BELOW: Damaging Red Deer storm was caused by straight wind

Windows were blown out at one city mall and the roof of at least one store was lifted off.

“The estimate is that we had 40 damaged power poles and the outages that resulted from the wind event impacted approximately 12,000 properties,” emergency management coordinator Karen Mann said. “If you calculate the number of residents that may live in those properties, the number of impacted residents is in that 30 to 35 per cent range.”

Watch below: After Tuesday’s severe storms left a wake of damage across central Alberta, Global News wanted to see how Environment Canada watches, forecasts and issues alerts about storms. Here’s Jesse Beyer.

One person suffered minor injuries at a campground.

Red Deer remains under a local state of emergency.

WATCH ABOVE: Red Deer Mayor Tara Veer says they will be very methodical and intentional is and when they lift the state of emergency.

The city said anyone who wants to help clean-up efforts can contact Volunteer Central at 403-346-3710 or community@volunteercentral.ca.

With files from Global’s Doug Vaessen