Video - Pictures - Severe thunderstorms leave Toronto underwater, 300K without power, Passengers stranded in train.

Video - Pictures - Severe thunderstorms leave Toronto underwater, 300K without power.HT: RussiaToday , The WeatherNetwork.

The Canadian city was hit with a month’s worth of rain in just one day, with approximately 3.5 inches of rainfall beginning at 4:00 pm EST. Commuters were soon stranded in traffic, with public transit enduring long delays. 

Environment Canada, the national weather service, put Toronto under a severe thunderstorm warning through Monday night because of a “cluster” of storms approaching from the southern Ontario cities of Brampton and Mississauga. Total rainfall is expected to near or exceed 4 inches. 
Flash flooding has left hundreds of passengers stranded aboard the Richmond Hill public train, according to the Globe and Mail, with as many as 1,000 people thought to be stuck in cars. The water was ankle deep and forced commuters to the upper level of the cars and to open the windows for extra air. Rescue crews were still en route at 9:52 pm EST. 

#flood24 pic.twitter.com/TtnbfWiE21
— DS Canvas Creations (@DSCanCreations) July 9, 2013

A train carrying as many as 1,400 other people was in a similar situation, with emergency crews only able to provide one small raft, according to Kim MacDonald of the National Weather Network. 

A passenger trapped on the GO Ttain told @weathernetwork that a police truck on the scene just floated away in the flood water. #onstorm
— Kim MacDonald (@KMacTWN) July 9, 2013

Mayor Rob Ford told CBC Radio “it’s all hands on deck” and the city has “brought in everybody to deal with the storm.” 

City officials warned residents to be safe but patient in waiting for overwhelmed utility workers, namely Toronto Hydro, to start turning the lights back on. 126 mm of rain was reported at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, beating the previous daily rainfall record of 121.4 mm set back in November, 1954.

Monday's rainfall totals also smashed the monthly average for July.

"Pearson airport has reported 90, yes 90 mm of rain in past 2 hours, more than 1 month's worth," tweeted The Weather Network's chief meteorologist, Chris Scott Monday night.

The late afternoon storm caused massive power outages, flooded numerous highways and streets and shut down the entire subway system at one point.

According to the City of Toronto, services will gradually resume Tuesday morning. "City crews and the City's Emergency Operations Centre have been working closely throughout the night with Toronto Hydro and the TTC to manage impacts to residents and restore services to residents as quickly as possible after yesterday's intense rainfall," the city stated on their website. About 1,400 people were caught by the flooding aboard a northbound GO Transit train (at Bayview and Pottery Rd.). It took police and firefighters about seven hours to ferry everyone to dry ground aboard small inflatable boats. Steve Harvey, the GO Transit manager of transit safety, said they got everyone off the train as quickly as they could. ”The emergency rescue workers were doing as best they could with the boats that we had. We could only fit so many people in a boat at a time and we tried to do it as fast and as safe as we could.” Ambulance officials at the scene said five or six people were treated for minor injuries and did not need to be taken to hospital.

GO Transit said the storm left portions of track "completely under water" on its Milton, Richmond Hill and Lakeshore West lines and suggested passengers seek alternative ways to travel Tuesday morning.

"Obviously, we‘re going to have some service disruptions as a result of the flooding and as a result of the washout we had on the Lakeshore West service as well," said Harvey. "We're asking customers to keep into the GO Transit website for the updates."

Toronto’s subway service was temporarily halted Monday evening, but service had resumed on most of the system by early Tuesday. Utility crews were still at work Tuesday morning trying to restore electricity to thousands of customers left in the dark by flood-related blackouts.

Hydro One said about 300,000 people in the west end of the Greater Toronto Area were without power due to "significant flooding" at two transmission stations. The utility said although 30,000 to 40,000 people had their power restored, the amount of flooding was impacting its ability to complete the repairs. Hydro One said it was not clear how quickly power would be restored.

Enersource said most, if not all, of its customers in Mississauga should have had their power back by early Tuesday morning. Powerstream said all of its customers north of Toronto who were blacked out all had their power back prior to midnight.

Impact on air travel

Air travelers were also affected during Monday's storm. Porter Airlines tweeted at about 7 pm that it had cancelled all flights out of the city’s downtown airport for the rest of the evening due to power outages in the terminal. Flooding even claimed Pearson airport's website offline, as its computer server room got soaked by flooding. Pearson Airport officials said the airport will be fully operational on Tuesday, but operations will be slower than normal.