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Storm leaves town in shambles

An intense thunderstorm that ripped through a southwestern Ontario community before daybreak on Sunday left dazed residents scrambling to cope with tree-strewn streets, battered homes and downed power lines.
Leamington Tornado
Bailey Westgate looks at the damage in their family home caused by a severe storm and possible tornado in Leamington

LEAMINGTON, Ont. — An intense thunderstorm that ripped through a southwestern Ontario community before daybreak on Sunday left dazed residents scrambling to cope with tree-strewn streets, battered homes and downed power lines.

Most of the damage was reported in Leamington, Ont. near Lake Erie, where authorities declared a state of emergency just three hours after a ferocious windstorm struck a strip of homes, sounding like a freight train to some.

“Scary thing when you wake up at 3 a.m. in the morning, and I thought how can I be hearing a train,” said Marilyn Collard, as she described the piercing noise of the storm.

“And that’s what it sounded like, a train coming down the lake,” she said.

A team from Environment Canada said it looked like the area was hit by a combination of a tornado and an equally strong windstorm called a downburst.

For Collard and her family, it took a moment to recognize the jarring noise.

“It hit me, ’oh my god, that is a tornado,”’ she said.

Collard ran and grabbed her husband and son, and just as they reached the top of the steps to the basement, the windows exploded, whipping around debris, dirt, and shingles from the neighbour’s roof.

“I would never want to live through this again. Ever, Ever. It’s the sound. When you start hearing trees snapping . . . that is just scary,” said Collard.

The damage to some areas looked like a bomb had exploded, said Anne Miskovsky, an emergency communications officer.

Power outages were widespread and crews worked feverishly to restore electricity, but by late afternoon, Miskovsky said some residents would be without power for days.

However, most phones were working by mid-afternoon.

The storm started building late Saturday night as Environment Canada issued several tornado warnings for the area throughout the night and into the early morning hours of Sunday.

The largest stretch of damage ran for about three kilometres.

“Huge trees are severed down the middle and are laying on top of the roads or houses. Hydro poles have been sheared in half and are just lying here,” said Miskovsky , as she tried to paint a picture of the wreckage.

Miskovsky said the next step for the community will be to assess the extent of the damages, as people begin to contact their insurance companies.

The hardest hit area may have been Seacliff Drive, a large street near the lake. Some residents said it looked like bulldozers had clear cut the area.

John Gleason, 21, was out of breath Sunday afternoon, as he and his friends hauled downed trees off his property.

He woke up that morning to see green lightening flashing across the sky, and watched as winds uprooted a tree, crashing it into his car and his sister’s car.

The Red Cross opened up an emergency shelter for people affected by the storm.

There were no reports of serious injuries.

“We’ve had minor injuries, but nothing major or critical,” said Sarah Padfield, a spokeswoman for Leamington District Memorial Hospital.

However Alina Wall, who walked around her community Sunday, saw ambulances darting in and out of the area.

Environment Canada said it’s team had been studying the worst of the damage along a two kilometre swath that looked like it was struck by first a tornado and then a downburst.

“It is complicated, but it’s reflecting what they’re seeing,” said Peter Kimbell, a warning preparedness meteorologist for Environment Canada.

A downburst is a powerful downward air current that, unlike a tornado, doesn’t rotate, but it can be just as deadly.

“It can do damage as significant as a tornado,” said Kimbell.

The brief tornado has been ranked as an F1, which has winds of between 120 to 170 kilometres per hour.

A conclusive answer on what kind of weather wrecked havoc in Leamington however, will likely only come on Monday.

South of the border a tornado unleashed chaos in northwest Ohio, killing at least seven people and destroying dozens of homes as a line of storms carved a path of destruction through the northern states.

Tornadoes also were reported in Illinois, Michigan and Indiana.

Kimbell said the Ontario storm was probably related to the intense weather in the U.S.

“The timing was correct,” he said. “It was a line of severe weather that went through the northern United States, the northern tip of which affected southwestern Ontario.”

— By Ciara Byrne in Toronto