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Friday, August 21, 2009

Summer Storms and Tornado Warnings

Haven't we had some crazy weather this year! We had a tornado warning yesterday. Thunderstorms had been predicted but never came. It was downright muggy and about supper time, the rain, all of a sudden, just teemed down. It was actually so torrential that we couldn't even see down to the lake and it came with whipping winds.
We lived in Barrie when it was struck in 1985 by a tornado. The next day, the sight was unbelievable. We've all seen destruction on TV but to actually see it in person.... To drive down a street that you've driven down many times before but this time it's all different! One day there's a copse of trees; the next day they're not there and the few trees left standing are striped of leaves and bark! To be stopped by armed soliers.....IN CANADA!! and questioned about why you're there.... The highway ran right thru the middle of the destruction so you got a good look at it as you drove by. The tornado had cut a swath thru Barrie & on either side everything was still as it had been.
When it came, the sky turned from blue to black instantly; when it went, the sky was green. Hopefully I never get to see that again.
I know that Ken was really worried that if we were hit with a tornado where would we go! We have no basement. You can't go outside & be safe! As a newscaster back then, he saw first hand the damage that had been done.
Apparently we did have tornados sighted or touched down all around us: Vaughn, Newmarket, Durham, Collingwood and Markham. South of us in Vaughn, it struck a shopping mall and damaged 120 homes in Newmarket & west of us in Durham, where it was especially severe, an 11 yr old child died (haven't heard details). There was some damage in Collingwood's Blue Mountain ski area as well.
Luckily the only damage that we had was a canoe filled almost to the top with water. Thankfully our boat has a cover on. At the shore line, the lake water was black & our nice beach eroded away and filled instead with debris. I'd say we got off lucky. This will have been the second severe weather watch that we've had this season!

3 comments:

  1. We had a huge branch from one of the trees crash down into my garden. All it did was flatten the flowers so we were lucky. Hasn't this year been really crazy????

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  2. Wow....we used to get weather like that in Minnesota....and tornadoes... I didn't' enjoy it one little bit and gladly traded it for the odd earthquake down here lol.

    Glad you are OK

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  3. Goodness. How sad for the parents of the child who was killed. We may get some bad weather from hurricanes off the Eastern seaboard--we're about five hours away in the Upstate of SC at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It's been a pretty calm summer here, though.

    Jody
    Mini Leaps and Bounds

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