Record Setting Snowstorm

Thousands of homes were left without power yesterday after a record-setting snowstorm hit southern Ontario.

Winds of up to 90 km/h combined with as much as 30 centimetres of thick wet snow in Fort Erie, knocked over trees and power lines, leaving almost 15,000 homes without electricity. There hasn't been a snowier October day in the Fort Erie region in the last hundred years, said David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada.

It was worse across the border in Buffalo where 60 centimetres fell, the worst October storm in Buffalo's history. An estimated 350,000 businesses and homes were left without power, three people were reported dead in weather-related accidents and many feared losing their water supply when a pumping station was knocked out in nearby Amherst.