TORONTO

City officials are tallying how much it has cost taxpayers to battle the massive ice storm.

Mayor Rob Ford is calling for a special council meeting Jan. 10 where he will call on the provincial government to provide an as-of-yet-undetermined amount of relief funding to the city under the Ontario Disaster Assistance Relief Program.

The city has 14 days to apply for cash to help cover cost of dealing with the storm.

“I’d love to compensate everybody, but I can’t guarantee that,” Ford said Sunday at City Hall.

“We haven’t got those numbers (of the city’s costs) yet. We will be sitting down and finding out how much forestry, transportation, fire, police, EMS has cost. Hopefully, we’ll have those numbers by Jan. 10, but I can’t make any guarantees.”

As of Monday morning, 725 customers remain without power, Ford says. Hydro advises those without electricity to call them at 416-542-8000 to ensure their address is in the queue to be fixed.

Toronto Hydro President Anthony Haines estimated it has cost his utility $1 million per day for costs which include personnel, materials and hotel bills for workers who came to Toronto from outside of the province.

“This is the largest weather event in Toronto Hydro’s history, so obviously the costs are commensurate with that,” he said.

“It is an awful lot of money, obviously not an easy answer immediately, but our process is one where we don’t receive tax dollars from the city. I would love to say we could find it all in our budget and there would be no impacts on customers — but I don’t know if that’s possible.”

Haines said he remained “optimistic” all Toronto residents should have power by Monday.

Toronto Hydro plans to commission an independent review of how the storm was handled by its staff.

First responders urged residents to employ extra caution when using chainsaws. A 30-year-old man in the Beach was taken to hospital Saturday with serious leg injuries he suffered while using a chainsaw to remove tree branches from his property.

“If you’re not used to using this type of equipment, you may consider calling a professional to do that clean-up for you,” said Paul Raftis, chief of Toronto EMS. Half of the eight warming centres — those at Mitchell Field, Lawrence Heights, Malvern and Driftwood community centres — closed Sunday as they were no longer needed, said Ford.

About 108 people stayed at the centres Saturday night. Police stations are still operating as warming stations.

Councillor Paula Fletcher said at the peak of the storm’s damage, 300,000 hydro customers translated to over 800,000 people who did not have power. She said had that number been exposed, the argument to declare a state of emergency would have been greater and perhaps warranted the military coming in.

Premier Kathleen Wynne said the province will match donations from local grocery retailers to help offset costs for spoiled food during the ice storm.

Loblaw Companies Ltd. is giving $25,000 to the cause, Wynne said Sunday.

jenny.yuen@sunmedia.ca