The Night a Hurricane Reached Toronto - Hazel 1954

On the night of October 15, 1954, a dying hurricane did something no one in Ontario thought was possible. Hazel had already killed hundreds in Haiti and torn through the Carolinas. By the time it reached Toronto it was no longer supposed to be dangerous. Instead it stalled over a city built along rivers, on ground already soaked by two weeks of rain, and dropped more water in one night than the Humber valley could carry. Bridges went first. Then the streets that ran down to the river. On one avenue in Weston, entire houses were lifted off their foundations with families still inside and carried into the dark. Five volunteer firefighters sent to help drowned when their truck was swept off Dundas Street West. By morning eighty-one people were dead, thousands were homeless, and the maps of Toronto had to be redrawn. This is the full story of Hurricane Hazel: how a hurricane reached that far inland, what happened hour by hour along the Humber River and in the Holland Marsh, who was lost, and why Toronto's river valleys are empty parkland to this day. Told with real archival photographs and period records, identified and credited. SOURCES Environment and Climate Change Canada, Hurricane Hazel storm summary and rainfall records Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, Hurricane Hazel flood records and floodplain acquisition history City of Toronto Archives, Hurricane Hazel photograph collections Toronto Public Library Digital Archive, 1954 flood photographs The Canadian Encyclopedia, Hurricane Hazel Weston Historical Society, Raymond Avenue and Weston flood records Contemporary reporting, The Globe and Mail and Toronto Daily Star, October 16-20, 1954 Photographs used in this video are archival press and municipal images from October 1954, credited to their holding institutions above. The Canadian Past tells the history of Canada from real archival photographs, official records and first-hand accounts. Sources are listed in every description. #CanadianHistory #HurricaneHazel #Toronto #HistoryOfCanada #CanadianDisasters #Ontario #1954 #Documentary