What you still need to know about Hamilton's ice storm

About 1,000 urban Hamilton residents and thousands more in outlying areas covered by Hydro One are still in the dark after a weekend ice storm knocked out power lines.

As of 5 p.m., residents were still without power. The outages were as follows:

• Upper Wellington to Upper Wentworth from Mohawk Road East to Howe Avenue (349 homes): estimated time of restoration 6 p.m. Monday
• Dundas, the area of Parkside and MacKay Road (60 people), with an estimated time of 10 p.m. Monday
• Juanita Drive and Brenlyn Court, affecting about 60 homes, with an estimated time of Monday afternoon
• Brucedale Avenue East area (365 customers), with estimated time of 6 p.m. Monday
• Mohawk Road to Scenic Drive from Rice Road to Lavina Crescent (100 homes), estimated time Monday afternoon
• Lynden Road in Flamborough (60 homes), estimated time of 10 p.m. Monday
• Multiple outages throughout rural Flamborough, including Flamboro Centre, where 1,449residents are expected to get power by 10 p.m. Dec. 24.
• Freelton, where 1,592 homes are without power and likely will be until 8 p.m. Christmas Day.
• The Fiddlers Green area of Ancaster, where 1,032 homes will likely be without power until 10 p.m. Dec. 24.

The city still has two warming centres open where people can sleep, get warm and shower. They will be open all night. The sheltersare at the following locations:

• North Wentworth Arena, 27 Highway 5, Flamborough
• Huntington Park Recreation Centre, 87 Brentwood Dr., Hamilton

What to do with your broken branches

The city is asking people with broken branches on their properties to haul them to the curb, where the city will collect them on their usual garbage day. There will be no garbage collection on Christmas Day or New Years Day.

Pick-up will occur on the day after your regularly scheduled pick-up for residents with Wednesday, Thursday or Friday collection days.

• RELATED:Hamiltonians coping without heat and power after ice storm
• RELATED:Hamilton ice storm: Hydro expects power restored by Monday night

It may take a while for the city to collect the branches. It could be one or two weeks after your next scheduled collection day, but the city will know more tomorrow.

Waste must be out at the curb by 7 a.m.

Local HSR is running at full service.

Upcoming weather

About 22 millimetres of freezing rain fell on Hamilton from Saturday to Sunday afternoon, said Dave Phillips, Environment Canada meteorologist.

But the rest of the week will be kinder.

The forecast is as follows:

Monday night

A maximum of two centimetres of snow, with light winds and a low of -10 C.

Tuesday

A few flurries ending early in the afternoon, then a mix of sun and cloud. The snow will be no more than two centimetres, just enough to be a white Christmas, Phillips said. But itll be cold a high of -8 C. Tuesday night, there will a few clouds with a low of -13 C.

Wednesday

Cloud with a 60 per cent chance of snow and a high of -5 C.

Thursday

Cloudy with a 40 per cent chance of snow. Low -6 C.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday will be cold with a mix of sun and cloud.

The gentle snow is maybe natures way of trying to make up for an exhausting ice storm, Phillips said.

Hamilton, he said, could even have a perfect Christmas day, which is light snow with that Christmas card look, Phillips said.

Its not going to be a big storm that will keep people from traveling, he said. It will really put us more in a festive mood and get our minds off the ice weve had for a few days.

Busy day for trees

Davey Tree Service has contracts throughout Hamilton and Burlington. Crews kept busy all day rushing from one call to another, clearing trees so utilities workers could restore power.

The company was busy after a wind storm in August, said district manager Chris Deathe.

This was worse, he said.