Storm rips through Laurentians, Lanaudière amid heat wave
Posted July 3, 2026 11:45 am.
Last Updated July 3, 2026 11:00 pm.
Violent thunderstorms and strong winds swept across Quebec Thursday night amid the ongoing heat wave, knocking out power to thousands and leaving a trail of damage.
One of the hard hit areas – L’Assomption, where a huge tent collapsed.
“I think to myself, I could have died,” said 12-year-old Charles Plouffe.
The child had passed under a large tent moments before it was violently tossed into the air and collapsed into nearby trees and powerlines. It had been erected for the North Shore Agricultural show, which finished a few days before the storm. Luckily Plouffe was not injured.
“My half brother and I were in the park a little further away when we started to hear thunder, so we hurried home,” explained Plouffe. “We began to feel the wind – and the leaves and rocks were flying into our faces. When we got near the tent, I passed underneath it with my half brother next to me, then 20 seconds later it collapsed.”
His mother, Martine Desgroseilliers, was shaken by the events.
“I was starting to get worried and I hadn’t even made it to the corner of the street to look for the boys when a wall of rain literally came crashing down. It got very, very dark, with strong winds, and that’s when I saw them appear – it was so thick that I was struggling to make them out through the rain, even though they were only about six feet away from me,” said Desgroseilliers.
She added that poles from the tent landed near her car and they were without electricity for most of the day on Friday. “I’ve never seen winds as strong as that. We could hear the crackling of trees as they fell – at the time, it was quite a sight.”
200 Hydro-Québec teams deployed
Across the province, over 137, 000 customers were in the dark around 9 p.m. Thursday, according to Hydro-Québec spokesperson Audrey St-Pierre – the height of the outages. As of 2 p.m. on Friday there were less than 22,000 without power across the province.
She said that 200 teams were working to put customers back on the grid – and reminded the public to avoid any downed lines and contact emergency services if they encounter them.
“We don’t want people to get electrocuted,” added St-Pierre. “Keep 10 meters away from the lines on the ground and make sure not to remove branches that have fallen onto a downed wire.”
In Blainville’s Fontainebleau neighbourhood, the cleanup was in full swing Friday morning after residents cleared up fallen trees and debris.
