The Edmonton region is a mess after a weekend thunderstorm toppled trees, damaged buildings and knocked out power to thousands of homes.

The sky over Edmonton on Saturday in the Windsor Park neighbourhood, just before a major storm hit the city. (Mackenzie Grisdale/CBC) The storm hit Saturday night, with winds of more than 100 kilometres an hour.

But the storm wasn't powerful enough to launch the Emergency Public Warning System, Bill McMurtry, meteorologist with Environment Canada said Monday.

"Generally EPWS is invoked when there is a tornado that has been reported or spotted or widespread damage, and that wasn't evident mid-evening when the [weather] system was hitting the city of Edmonton," McMurtry said.

The wind reached top speeds of 106 km/h, he said.

The winds were so strong that a tree fell on a home at 180th Street and 96th Avenue, forcing a family of four to seek shelter elsewhere with the help of the Red Cross.

Power lines were taken down as trees cracked or snapped, causing power outages.

Wild Earth Foods at 99 Street and 89 Avenue in Edmonton was without power for 13 hours after Saturday's storm, which spoiled some food, owner Norm Joly said. (CBC) Wild Earth Foods, a family-owned grocery store at 99 Street and 89 Avenue went without power for 13 hours over the weekend, which spoiled some food, the owner said.

"We did lose some dairy, we did lose some chicken," Norm Joly said. The total tally of what was lost isn't known, he said.

"We're being extra careful to make sure we're not putting out something that's not good.... You realize how much we rely on power when something happens," Joly said.

Most of Sunday was spent on damage control, bringing in bags of ice to keep meat and dairy products cold, he said.

In Edmonton, 450 customers were still without electricity by midday Monday, mostly in the areas of Hardisty and Rundle Park, a spokesperson for the Epcor utility company said Monday.

"The particular type of repairs they are doing are considerably more than a routine repair; we've got trees down on wire lines, we have power pole fires and those kind of repairs take more time," Tim LeRiche said.

Crews are working non-stop, he said.

A total of 57,000 customers were affected by the storm, LeRiche said.

The city has hired contractors to begin cleaning up broken branches and damaged trees on city property, after Saturday's storm.(CBC) It will take a few weeks for crews to clean up the mess left behind by trees that were damaged or uprooted by the storm, city arborist Bonnie Fermanuik said.

"We're not dealing with single limbs that have failed but major trees that are cracked or twisted and broken, so the cleanup is taking quite a bit of time," Fermanuik said.

The city logged about 233 call-outs Saturday night, with the northeast part of the city the hardest hit.

It costs the city about $1,000 to replace a tree, she said.

A woman was injured during the storm when part of a concrete overhang at the front entrance to the 26-storey CN Tower office building in downtown Edmonton came crashing down, emergency officials said.

With files from The Canadian Press