Okanagan residents were busy Wednesday cleaning up the mess left behind by yesterday's wild windstorm.
Strong winds downed trees and large branches around the region, causing large power outages and even damage to some homes.
Possibly the biggest tree to fall during Tuesday’s windstorm was on a property in Lake Country.
According to property owner Brian Postill, a group of trees went down with the largest being likely a hundred years old and well over 100 feet tall.
“It’s a poplar tree and it has been here as long as my family has had the property, which is since the 1930's,” said Postill.
“I think it has something to do with Okanagan Lake’s high water this year, the water came up well past the tree roots and it has never been that high before.”
According to Postill, had the tree fallen a bit more to the south the house may have seen extensive damage.
The Lake Country Fire Department was busy on Tuesday helping out some Lake Country homes that were not so lucky.
"Between 2 p.m. until about midnight our crews responded to 15 separate incidents of downed trees," said Fire Chief, Steve Windsor.
"Trees were blocking roads, some damaged homes and several damaged and disrupted power lines."
Unfortunately, Postill says poplar trees don't make for good firewood but it may have made room for more cherry trees next summer.
If you get value from KelownaNow and believe local independent media is important to our community we ask that you please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter.
If you appreciate what we do, we ask that you consider supporting our local independent news platform.
