More rain was bearing down on the Toronto area early today as the region continued to mop up from a torrential downpour on Monday evening.

However, the risk of a similar drenching diminished early Wednesday when a special weather statement that warned of the possibility of "torrential downpours and damaging winds" was lifted.

Environment Canada's statement, which covered the Windsor area north to Sarnia and east through Parry Sound-Muskoka, Hamilton, Niagara and Toronto, has now been cancelled.

The new weather system was pushing in from the U.S. as Toronto continues to recover from severe flooding caused by record-setting rainfall.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford said on Tuesday that the 126 millimetres of rain that fell on the city in just two hours a day earlier was "unprecedented."

"Toronto has persevered; we have weathered the storm," said Ford, stressing the need to reduce electricity consumption. "This is crucial that we all reduce our electricity for today to help relieve the strain on our hydro system. We're hanging on by a thread right now."

The Toronto Transit Commission was able to restore subway service between Jane and Islington stations early on Wednesday after previous disruptions caused by power and flooding.

The storm caused widespread power outages, and Toronto Hydro said that as many as 10,000 customers remained without electricity.

The blackouts were primarily in the city's west end and the utility said it "may be necessary" to resume rotating outages in the morning to prevent overloading.

Toronto Hydro said on Tuesday that customers in four major areas would be affected by "load shedding," which means planned rotating blackouts. Those four areas were:

  • North of Nassau Street, south to King Street West; West of Shaw Street, east of Charlotte Street.
  • South of St. Clair Ave West, south to Queen Street West; west of Jane Street east to Spadina Avenue.
  • Dundas St West to Lake Ontario; Roncesvalles Avenue east to Spadina Avenue.
  • Old Weston Road, south to Queen Street West; Sunnyside Avenue, east to Lansdowne Avenue.

"We stopped those at midnight, and we're hoping that we won't have to do them again and inconvenience people," said Toronto Hydro spokeswoman Andrea Corkum.

There are still reports of isolated outages in some areas.

Corkum said crews were working to "re-energize" a hydro station that would restore power to the thousands of customers in the west end of the city who have been without electricity since Monday night.

The CBC's Steven Bull said that one of the two stations that went down had more than a million litres of water pumped out.

Search for missing man

Police continued their search for a missing 76-year-old man last seen in the Yonge Street and Finch Avenue West area.

The man, identified as Walter Thompson, is between five-feet-six and five-feet-nine inches tall, weighing about 160 pounds, with grey hair.

Thompson, who wears glasses, was last seen wearing a red long-sleeved shirt with dark blue pants and black shoes.

He may have been driving a grey four-door 2007 Chevrolet Malibu with Ontario licence plate 245 WCB.

With files from The Canadian Press