While most people were bunkered down in their homes on Thursday night listening to the howling winds in search of the end of the storm, a group of City of Hamilton workers were already hard at work cleaning up the city.

Twelve city workers took to the streets on clean up details at 11 p.m. that night.

They worked particularly hard to keep the city drains clear of debris in order to minimise flooding, Corporation of Hamilton Secretary Roger Sherratt said yesterday.

City crews began moving debris to sides of the road in the evening and six truck loads of downed foliage and waste had already been collected and deposited at Pembroke dump before midnight.

By Friday morning, the city clean-up team had expanded to 35 men and by end of day yesterday, Mr. Sherratt said he expected at least 50 truckloads of debris would have been cleaned away from the city streets.

While many businesses within the city boundaries escaped power losses, traffic lights in the northern portion of Hamilton were knocked out.

All three of the city's parks - Victoria, Par-la-Ville and Fort Hamilton - were closed to the public yesterday as they were scheduled to cleaned up last.

A concert which was planned for Victoria Park on Sunday had to be postponed.

The city escaped major damage but the horse canopy on Front Street took a hard hit, Mr. Sherratt said and a big sliding door at Number One shed was damaged.

And the city lost roughly a dozen full trees including two Pride of Indias at Bulls Head and a Juniper tree on Ewing Street.

Fort Hamilton lost a few palm trees and many black ebony trees around the city lost a lot of branches, he added.