Skip to content

Wild finish to fair as grounds ordered evacuated

A fearsome thunderstorm bringing high winds and heavy hail caused damage throughout the city and forced police to order an evacuation at the Westerner Days fair on Saturday night.
x
A fearsome thunderstorm bringing high winds and heavy hail caused damage throughout the city and forced police to order an evacuation at the Westerner Days fair on Saturday night.

A fearsome thunderstorm bringing high winds and heavy hail caused damage throughout the city and forced police to order an evacuation at the Westerner Days fair on Saturday night.

Westerner Park manager John Harms said on Sunday that he had seen a series of storms forming on the weather radar, which he watches through each day of the fair, just in case.

The first storm had blown in and the midway was already shut down at about 10:30 p.m. when RCMP patrolling the grounds ordered that the entire facility be evacuated.

The fair had been busy and the Centrium was full of people taking in the Dean Brody concert when the evacuation was ordered, said Harms.

It was the first time an evacuation has been ordered in the Westerner’s history.

There have been previous occasions in which people were asked to take shelter inside, but they’ve never before had to leave the property altogether, he said.

While there were some traffic jams in the process, the parking lots were emptied by 11 p.m., leaving Westerner crews the task of cleaning up the leftovers.

Harms said there was no damage on the midway, but one ATM machine was blown over by a gust of wind and storm drains were blocked up with leaves that the hail had stripped off of the trees.

Environment Canada meteorologist Brad Power said Red Deer got the most intense part of a big storm that had started forming around Drayton Valley along the edge of a cold front.

The storm lasted for about half and hour and brought hail stones ranging from toonie to golfball size riding winds that gusted up to 117 kilometres per hour, said Power.

The big storm had just moved on when another series of thunderstorms struck, bringing more hail and heavy rains, he said.

Harms said he heard that some people’s gardens had been shredded and he knows of at least one home in Oriole Park that had its siding stripped.

As intense as the storm was on Saturday, he said it had a relatively small impact on what looks to be one of the most successful Westerner Days fairs yet.

The midway would have suffered some loss of revenue as a result of the storm, but there was little if any impact on the gate because very few people come into the fair at that time of night, said Harms.

New attractions this year included SuperDogs, lumberjack demonstrations and a one-day visit from the Hot Wheels Road Trip on Sunday.

Harms said he would not know how the 2013 Westerner Days stacks up against previous events until final figures were tallied from Sunday.

bkossowan@www.reddeeradvocate.com