The mayor of Brooke-Alvinston says cleanup following Thursday's storm may take weeks.
David Ferguson told Sarnia News Today he has been surveying the damage since and thankfully, to his knowledge, nobody was hurt.
"It looked like the core of the storm went through the middle of the township and the Village of Alvinston has been hit the worst," said Ferguson. "I am hearing [there are] a lot of trees down, a lot of limbs lost. There's going to be a lot of cleanup with chipping trucks for the next week or two. It's not going to happen overnight."
Ferguson said everyone in the town immediately jumped into action Thursday night to help get streets unblocked for emergency vehicles.
"We're seeing a few houses [that have been] hit by trees," he said. "The big trees in peoples backyards are going to be issues ongoing. One, it's hard to get them out of the backyards without issues, two, there's going to be a lot of cost to it."
Ferguson said neighbouring municipalities immediately offered them help.
"I've been talking to Warwick and Dawn-Euphemia. Getting the roads opened up was the biggest issue. Later on, maybe we'll look for a bit of manpower, but the manpower is going to be looking for guys with chainsaws and chipping trucks."
Ferguson said they were holding a public meeting on the official plan in the Alvinston Fire Hall when the storm hit.
"We were looking outside watching and all of a sudden... from leaves going straight across, we saw leaves starting to swirl. There's some poplar trees out back. Next thing you know, we heard a thump on the roof and the communications tower tipped over on the fire hall. This was one of the most vicious winds I've witnessed first hand."
The Wanstead Farmers Co-Operative in Alvinston suffered structural damage to its elevators.
The company, on its Facebook page, is asking growers with recently harvested wheat to contact their office to make arrangements.
Environment Canada's Gerald Cheng said they've yet to confirm if any tornadoes touched down in Sarnia-Lambton.
"Right now we don't know because we're still receiving information and gathering information," said Cheng.
He encourages anyone with photos or video from the storm to share them on social media with the hashtag #ONStorm or send them to ONStorm@ec.gc.ca.
Meanwhile, a survey team from Western University's Northern Tornadoes Project is investigating whether Thursday's severe weather produced a tornado.
They're looking into storm damage near Petrolia, Alvinston, and in the London-area.
They said there were lots of areas across southwestern Ontario with wind damage, some with potential to be tornadic.
More areas with significant damage may be added to the list.
