Video shows suspect setting Toronto-area barbershop on fire
Video of a suspect lighting a Richmond Hill barbershop on fire earlier this week has been released by police.
When Hurricane Fiona made landfall over the weekend as a post-tropical storm, Prince Edward Island and one of its most important ecosystems endured significant damage as the storm triggered erosion on the province’s coastline.
Photos from the Canadian Space Agency showed the extent of the storm’s force as it swept through the province. Citizen scientists on the ground also captured its impact on the sand dunes of national parks, including Dalvay, Brackley and Cavendish Beach.
Chris Houser, a science professor at the University of Windsor, says the damage to the Dalvay national park sand dunes is unlike anything seen before
“The dune basically was cut in half,” Houser told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Tuesday.
“It lost a large part of its volume, it’s going to collapse eventually, lose a lot of its height, and most of the sediments went offshore with some of it going behind the barrier through little washover channels.”
Meteorologists have described Fiona as one of the most impactful storms to have hit the Atlantic region as wind gusts reached over 100 kilometres per hour with some areas in P.E.I. nearing 150 km/h. Though the main brunt of the storm was its staying power, as forceful winds made for a consistent storm surge that lasted for hours.
Houser says early reports from his team of citizen scientists with Parks Canada’s Coastie Initiative indicate the high tides caused by the storm took nearly 10 metres off the dune and approximately 30 cubic metres per every metre of sand was lost from the beach. While sand dunes naturally recover themselves, it’ll likely take years for the dunes to recover because of Fiona’s force.
“It's going to have an impact on that system over the next couple of years because it could almost take 10 years for that system to fully recover,” he said.
Sand dunes are an important ecosystem to the province, says Jennifer Stewart from Parks Canada P.E.I. She says they play an essential role as a natural barrier to protect other ecological communities and ourselves from future extreme weather events.
“During Hurricane Dorian, in 2019, we lost an average of two metres of coastline throughout P.E.I. National Park, and so we are used to having hurricanes in this area, but I haven't seen this level of erosion before,” Stewart told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Tuesday.
Sand dunes are able to rebuild themselves during the spring once beach vegetation begins to grow marram grass. This grass is essential in rebuilding the dunes as the grass catches sand to grow new dunes, spreading under the surface of the sand to create roots that will form a net to keep the sand in place.
“That's the protection that we would have against the forces of the Gulf of St. Lawrence,” she said. “So not having that sand dune there, it leaves us a bit more vulnerable to damage from winter storms and weather in general.”
However, with the effects of climate change increasing every year, ecosystems like the sand dunes may not be able to recover fast enough before further extreme weather events cause more damage.
With melting ice caps triggering rising sea levels, Houser says storms like Fiona will only increase with time and further delay the recovery process of these ecosystems. Additionally, warmer winters that are unable to create ice over our lakes can cause further damage to the dunes as the ice would normally give them a break from consistent waves.
“I think the most important piece here is the recovery. The erosion is always such a dramatic event and we focus on that, but the most important thing that will determine how the system will change is the recovery, which is going to take years to a decade,” he said.
Houser says it’s become more important than ever for citizen scientists and environmentalists to continue to collect photos and data on the effects of these extreme weather events to help better understand the ways to protect these ecosystems.
Video of a suspect lighting a Richmond Hill barbershop on fire earlier this week has been released by police.
A New Brunswick woman suffering from sarcoidosis, a disease that limits your lung capacity, is in need of a double lung transplant.
The adorable trio of child actors from the 1993 classic comedy 'Mrs. Doubtfire,' which starred the late and great Robin Williams, are all grown up and looking back on their seminal time together.
York Regional Police say they are continuing to search for a suspect in an auto theft investigation who was captured on video running over a police officer in Toronto last month.
It’s the first flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule with a crew on board, a pair of NASA pilots who will check out the spacecraft during the test drive and a weeklong stay at the space station.
A source close to singer Britney Spears tells CNN that the pop star is 'home and safe' after she had a 'major fight' with her boyfriend on Wednesday night at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood.
Pius Suter scored with 1:39 left and the Vancouver Canucks advanced to the second round of the NHL playoffs with a 1-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Friday night in Game 6.
A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country's mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
TD Bank Group could be hit with more severe penalties than previously expected, says a banking analyst after a report that the investigation it faces in the U.S. is tied to laundering illicit fentanyl profits.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.