A suspected tornado knocked down trees, granaries and power lines while damaging several houses at a small country residential area eight km southwest of Innisfail on Thursday.
Fire, ambulance, police and search and rescuers from the Innisfail and Red Deer areas rushed out to the scene along Cottonwood Road (Township Road 352) near Range Road 21 after hearing a report that a tornado or some funnel cloud had struck the area about 8:45 p.m. The crews worked late into the night, bulldozing spruce trees that had broken by the mighty power of Mother Nature.
Kelly’s Campground located north of the area was described as a mess, by a Shell employee who was called out.
Emergency management co-ordinator Ric Henderson from Red Deer County told the Red Deer Advocate at the scene at 11 p.m. that no one appeared to have been hurt. One road leading to several houses had been covered with downed trees. It’s not believed that any houses had collapsed.
“It had come from the south and there was a one-mile stretch (of destruction),” said Henderson. “A couple houses have been checked and there is some damage to some buildings. There are people making sure that everyone is fine.”
Red Deer volunteer search and rescuers were called to check the structural integrity of the houses, as well as do a thorough search within the fallen trees.
This was believed to be the third sighting of a tornado that touched down as part of a rotating thunderstorm, which had been moving northeast at 30 km/h.
Henderson said he didn’t want to confirm this was a tornado until Environment Canada experts had a good look at the area on Friday.
But eyewitnesses believe that this was a tornado that touched down, so they feel lucky to be alive.
Celine Gerber, a 17-year-old who lives on a dairy farm near Range Road 22 and Cottonwood Road, watched on the main floor of her family home as a massive black funnel cloud approached.
“It was like on all sides, but we definitely wouldn’t have been in the middle because we would have had damage,” Gerber said. “We only had golf-ball sized hail.”
Gerber said she’s thankful.
“At the moment, I haven’t heard of anybody being hurt, but I still feel pretty bad about all the damage because we know all our neighbours,” said Gerber, referring to the toppled down silos just a few hundred metres away.
Her older sister used a chainsaw to take down some trees in front of a neighbour’s house. Big tractors and bulldozers with headlights moved back and forth nearby.
Heleen Eekes, waiting next to her two teenaged children, Anne and Jasper Vennik, covered in blankets, was told her house was still standing. They hadn’t been at home at the time.
“When we looked down the Range Rd (20), it was pretty much covered like a jungle,” said Jasper.
They are hearing that their six horses, plus a dog inside, were unharmed.
“We know at least two houses (in the area) are damaged,” said Jasper.
A severe thunderstorm, packing hailstones as large as tennis balls, sparked high alert after at least three tornados were spotted touching down in West Central Alberta on Thursday.
Environment Canada issued a tornado warning for the Sundre area at 4:50 p.m. after a tornado was seen touching down about 10 minutes earlier southeast of Bergen, a tiny community south of Sundre.
Stuart MacKay, lead meteorologist, said a storm chaser saw a second tornado touch down at about 5:55 p.m. just west of Olds.
RCMP then issued a sighting of a tornado that touched the ground eight km southwest of Innisfail at about 8:30 p.m.
Hailstones pummelled down while heavy rains and winds spread the storm’s heavy arsenal.
MacKay said there were reports of tennis ball-sized hail 10 km east of Sundre, while golf-ball sized hail reached the town of Sundre itself. Quarter-sized hail to golf-ball hail was reported five km south of Sundre.
Environment Canada issued severe thunderstorm watches for several parts of Central Alberta, including Red Deer, Ponoka, Innisfail and Stettler at 9 p.m. This is an alert to the potential development of severe thunderstorms with large hail and damaging winds.
A tornado is considered a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud.
Planes with cloud seeding capabilities were kept busy in the skies through the day and night, in an attempt to try and minimize damage to crops and other property.
Terry Krauss, program manager of the Alberta Hail Suppression Project, which is part of the company North Dakota-based Weather Modification, said four planes — two in Calgary and two in Red Deer — were dispatched and by early evening, three remained in the sky.
Hired by a group of Alberta insurance companies, Weather Modification’s cloud seeders fire silver iodide into storm clouds as they build. The silver iodide reduces the size and impact of hailstones the cloud may produce. The planes work a region known as “Thunder Alley” starting June 1 and wrapping up on Sept. 15.
Krauss said potentially the work can be dangerous, but the pilots have the expertise to know how to move in and around the storm.
ltester@www.reddeeradvocate.com