Here's the carnage Mother Nature left just now outside my house on St. George Street.
Holy high winds, Batman!

I called the 416-397-TRAF (8723) hotline to report it. It's a 24-hour hotline for folks to report potentially dangerous motoring hazards within Toronto city limits. They said they'd contact Forestry and get someone out right away, because cars were either running into the tree or swerving to avoid it. Either way, not good.

At Toronto's emergency roads dispatch number, 416-392-5555, the gods can get very busy. Apparently, the city actually removed the number from the phone book Blue Pages because people were calling in to report relatively minor issues. On the city's Web site, at www.toronto.ca/transportation, there is a whole mess of numbers to call, depending on the part of town you are in. Some are staffed 24 hours, some not.

Why put citizens and do-gooders through so many hoops?