It took almost all day to re-establish power that was knocked out when the storms rumbled across mainland Nova Scotia on Sunday.
Lightning from the storms was the impressive and dangerous kind not often seen in the Halifax area.
Scott Dent had hoped to be recounting details of his Sunday night barbeque with the guys on the worksite, but nature had other plans.
"In Porter's Lake, it literally shook you, when she was clapping," Dent said.
The skies opened up just after 5 p.m. with torrents of rain, gusty winds, and plenty of thunder and lightning, captured on cellphones all over the city.
Almost immediately, the calls started flooding in to Halifax Fire and Emergency -- nearly 50 in an hour-and-a-half.
"A power station out in Timberlea. A couple of poles, a couple of transformers, and we had a house in East Chezzetcook that had the chimney knocked-off," said assistant fire chief Chuck Bezanson.
Power crews were busy, too, with 60,000 off the grid immediately after the storms.
Some power equipment took a direct hit, including one of the smokestacks at Tuft's Cove power generating station on the Dartmouth waterfront.
"Well, it's interesting, you know, lightning's electricity, but you don't want lightning to contacting your electrical equipment!" said Nova Scotia Power spokesman David Rodenhiser.
The utility called in crews from all corners of the province, and by mid-afternoon, everyone had been reconnected.
As for Tuft's Cove?
"Protective equipment on that stack protected it from any damage, so there wasn't any interruption of the work at the plant but it was a spectacular piece of video," Rodenhiser said.
Many Haligonians spent at least part of the day cleaning-up damage, but a large regional insurance company tells CTV News an expected flood of claims never really materialized on Monday.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Bruce Frisko.
