It was a wild few hours for Central Albertans today as we weathered a storm packing high winds and driving rain.

Not many were spared of power outages, with widespread issues as a result of downed power lines; fallen trees were the main contributor.
 
Lacombe Fire Crews dealt with more than 11 calls in a short span both in the City and the surrounding rural area.
 
Deputy Fire Chief Drayton Bussiere says thankfully they didn't find anyone in any imminent danger.

“There’s a little bit of risk to downed power line calls all the time, the majority of the ones we went to today though were really serving no risk to the public. There were downed power lines that were probably live, but they were off the roads and they were grounded. If there is a risk that is posed to the public then we’ll usually remain on the scene and make sure it doesn’t get any worse, but in most of the cases today we were able to move on to the next call pretty quickly”.

There were no reports of any injuries as a result of today’s storm.

City Crews were also kept really busy according to Equipment Operator Jason Mathewson.

“Trees and branches, some catch basin flooding, alarms at the lift stations and pump houses, high levels, a lot of power outages throughout the city”.

He notes how many calls they were dealing with.

“Probably close to 6 to 8 different spots we went to, one (tree) was over a vehicle, somebody’s driveway, a couple of power poles went down downtown on 50th right by the CIBC, there was a light standard and a power pole”.

Mayor Steve Christie notes a few other problems.

“Definitely some of the older trees in some of the areas, I see one just off 50th Street that pulled up somebody’s whole lawn, which is going to be a lot of work to repair and then at the old Police Station the communications tower bent in half so there’s some damage there that has to be dealt with, it didn’t come down onto the roof or cause any more damage there”.

CP Rail also faced some issues at the Highway 12 and 2A rail crossing.

Christie says city crews will be back out tomorrow to continue the clean-up effort in city parks and greenspaces.