North Battleford is dealing with the aftermath of Monday night's storms.

City crews worked throughout the night to remove fallen trees and clean up the debris. SaskPower employees worked through the night too trying to fix a citywide blackout.

"They were having trouble giving me an estimate this morning just because they are so busy just assessing the damage and fixing what they can," said Tyler Hopson, a representative of SaskPower.

Around 4 a.m. power was back on in part of North Battleford's east side, but it is still out in much of the city. Hopson can't give an estimate on when it will be fixed.

"The latest I heard is sometime on Tuesday, which is not too specific," he said.

On 32nd street one resident lost power but her neighbour lost part of her home.

"We've got a huge, it's got to be at least a 30-foot, poplar tree that is kind of in our next door neighbour’s yard. Most of it is down over on top of their mobile home and it actually took our power post and dragged along with it," she said.

A man had a tree come down on his house in northeastern North Battleford

"I was downstairs with the kids and we heard something hit the house. We thought it was the trampoline but it was the tree ... I'd say (it is) 45 feet," he said.

The straight-line winds were strong enough to be damaging and Environment Canada meteorologist John Paul Cragg says they can't rule out tornadoes either.

"It's a possibility that there were tornadoes in the area. The atmosphere wasn't a perfect set up but there is a possibility and we have to take those reports seriously and look at pictures and try to decide whether there was a tornado or not," Cragg said

Just north of the Battlefords in Hamlin, a resident's wind speed instrument blew right off his house.

"The wind speed was recording on my machine here at 119 km/hr before it blew it off the roof," he said.

North Battleford is not out of weather troubles yet. Cragg said that it is on the northern edge of an area at risk for possible tornadoes, hail, wind and rain throughout Tuesday.

The city anticipates the cleanup to last several days. They are taking names and addresses of anyone with tree issues and will prioritize the areas where safety is extremely importants.

Hospitals affected

The Prairie North Health region is asking residents to avoid visiting the emergency and long-term care facilities unless it's absolutely necessary.

Battlefords Union Hospital is running on backup power today due to last night's storm; and at Meadow Lake Hospital, power is still out. Saskpower says the hospital could potentially be without power for up to 24 hours because of extensive damage to their transmission system.

Linda Lewis with Prairie North Health Region says the emergency department is on, but day surgeries, elective surgeries and most outpatient procedures have been cancelled today.

"Because of the power outage there's now air conditioning in the building and except for emergency care people are advised not to visit the UH today as we work to keep the building as cool as possible for patients and staff," explained Lewis.

Lewis says there will be an update at 4 p.m. today, or when events warrant.

Cable and Internet services down

Due to the periodic power outages, both Access Communications and Sasktel say that cable and Internet service could be down throughout the day.

Sasktel crews are out in the field running generators and Access crews are fixing overhead lines damagned by falling branches.

 kmalone@rawlco.com

Read more at: North Battleford farm experiences brunt of the storm