The July storm in Greater Sudbury did some serious damage to property in several parts of the city, but not enough to qualify for a damage estimate for Canada's insurance industry.
A group called Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc. (Cat-IQ) compiles damage estimates for the Insurance Bureau of Canada, and takes 45 days to determine whether an event that causes significant destruction qualifies.
A storm is classified as catastrophic if the damage estimate is $25 million or more, and notable if the damage estimate is between $10 million and $25 million.
Vanessa Barrasa, manager of media relations with Insurance Bureau of Canada, said Wednesday that Cat-IQ has informed them the July storm in Sudbury doesn't qualify for an estimate under the guidelines.
And while the storm didn't qualify as either "catastrophic" or "notable" for insurance companies, it was certainly both of those things for the people involved.
Sudburians in the Montrose and Grandview Avenue areas spent weeks clearing debris from their homes and properties, and repairing damage from fallen trees and flying debris. Power was out for days in the affected areas.
Damage to its refridgeration system kept Smith's Market on Lasalle Boulevard closed for six weeks.
Cat-IQ has been calculating the estimates since 2008. In April, it reported that 100 catastrophic events have happened in the last decade, with the five most costly in the last five years.
No. 1 was the Fort McMurray wildfire in 2016, followed by the Alberta flood in 2013, flooding in Toronto in 2013, hailstorms in Alberta in 2014, and the 2011 fire in Slave Lake, Alta.
