Hurricane Hazel was the deadliest, most destructive storm to hit southern Ontario. Hurricane hunters identified it brewing 75 kilometres east of Grenada on October 5, 1954. Its erratic, unpredictable path took it to Haiti, where it killed between 400 and 1,000 people and destroyed 40% of the country’s coffee trees, thus harming the Haitian economy for years. On October 14, it hit South Carolina, Washington, DC, Pennsylvania, and New York. It killed 100 people and caused $1.5 billion in damage in the United States. On October 15, it hit southern Ontario, especially Toronto.
Meteorologists had predicted that Hurricane Hazel would dissipate after moving inland from the Carolina coast, but it did not, and it moved towards Ontario. Ontarians, who were not used to hurricanes, were unprepared. In the afternoon, heavy rain fell on Toronto. By the evening, underpasses and major roads were flooded; Highway 400 was under 10 feet of water. The Humber River overflowed and swept away numerous houses. On one street alone, Raymore Drive, 35 people died, and 32 homes were swept away by water. The Holland Marsh area was completely submerged. A dam burst in Woodbridge and flooded a trailer park, where nine people died. By the end of the hurricane, 81 people had died in Ontario, mainly in Toronto and nearby areas. Four thousand families were homeless. Damage was $137.5 million (over $1.1 billion in today’s dollars).
St. John Ambulance was a member of the then-existing Civil Defence Program. Humewood Division 159, the largest St. John Ambulance Division in Ontario, mobilized 125 volunteers who spent a week staffing first aid posts, organizing food kitchens, recovering the bodies of drowning victims, and giving typhoid vaccinations to relief workers and the public. Humewood Division 159 also organized a group of private cars to tow six boats to disaster areas.
The Reeve of Etobicoke Township wrote to Humewood Division 159, “Words fail to express my personal thanks for your untiring round-the-clock efforts of the past week. An organization such as yours makes us all proud to be Canadians.”
