On the afternoon of Friday, July 31st, 1987 a powerful and devastating tornado ripped through the eastern part of Edmonton and parts of Strathcona County. The tornado was on the ground for a full hour, destroyed nearly 25 miles in its path and killed 27 people, injured more than 300 and caused roughly $300 million in property damage. It peaked at F4 on the Fujita scale, which goes from an F0 to an F5.
I was 18 years old at the time and here is my account of what happened...
I was working part time at George E Failing Supply Co. This building was on the northwest side of town. I worked there with my best friend Mindy doing some misc. secretarial things. It was about 4 o'clock (I think) and since it was a Friday, we were the only ones left in the building. It was overcast and I remember it being fairly warm. As we were stepping out the door to leave, we noticed that is was unusually dark and eerily calm. I will never forgot, even though the air was so still, looking up and seeing the clouds swirling overhead. They were blue, red, purple and green and they were moving in a fast, circular motion. We went inside and tuned in to the radio where we were alerted about a tornado having been spotted on the other side of town. It was at about that time that all hell broke loose. The wind started to blow and large tennis ball sized hail started to beat down.
Being teenagers and having no real common sense or realizing the seriousness of the situation outside, we decided to hang out and let the "storm" pass. We thought (how silly to think about now), that if we were going to die, we ought to go out with a bang. Driving the 45 minutes home was not an option, so we decided to grab what we could for survival (beer and who-knows-how-long-it-had-been-in-there fruitcake) from our boss's fridge and meet our doom, together and in style. I remember how loud the wind, hail and pounding rain became; I heard later on that those closer to the actual tornado said it sounded like a freight train. I don't recall how long we waited but it must have been an hour or so before we went back upstairs and tried calling our loved ones. The phones were down so we got in Mindy's car and headed toward home.
I remember the drive taking forever. There were cars and trucks all along the side of the road. There was so much water, puddles that were half way up the side of the car. The roofs and hoods on most of the cars had been dented by the huge hail stones. All I remember after finally arriving home was that my family was safe and we all sat and listened to each others account of what happened (mine was missing some minor details, like the beers). A few days later, we drove around the city and were shocked to see what damage the tornado had done. There was so much destruction. Trees had been uprooted or chain-sawed in half. Houses either completely wiped out or missing their roofs. It was horrifying to see the tornado's random path, what it destroyed and what it didn't. One side of the street leveled and the other still standing. How fortunate my family was, our neighborhood was only a few miles from where it touched down.
It was a long time before I felt calm during warm, rainy weather. Now that I knew what the start of a funnel cloud looked like, I saw them forming all the time. That was the only tornado I have lived through and hopefully I will never witness one first hand again. While it is kind of cool to say that I have seen and lived through a natural disaster, I don't EVER want to do that again.
Here is some footage of the tornado (please ignore the commentary by the twit filming it).
I was 18 years old at the time and here is my account of what happened...
I was working part time at George E Failing Supply Co. This building was on the northwest side of town. I worked there with my best friend Mindy doing some misc. secretarial things. It was about 4 o'clock (I think) and since it was a Friday, we were the only ones left in the building. It was overcast and I remember it being fairly warm. As we were stepping out the door to leave, we noticed that is was unusually dark and eerily calm. I will never forgot, even though the air was so still, looking up and seeing the clouds swirling overhead. They were blue, red, purple and green and they were moving in a fast, circular motion. We went inside and tuned in to the radio where we were alerted about a tornado having been spotted on the other side of town. It was at about that time that all hell broke loose. The wind started to blow and large tennis ball sized hail started to beat down.
Being teenagers and having no real common sense or realizing the seriousness of the situation outside, we decided to hang out and let the "storm" pass. We thought (how silly to think about now), that if we were going to die, we ought to go out with a bang. Driving the 45 minutes home was not an option, so we decided to grab what we could for survival (beer and who-knows-how-long-it-had-been-in-there fruitcake) from our boss's fridge and meet our doom, together and in style. I remember how loud the wind, hail and pounding rain became; I heard later on that those closer to the actual tornado said it sounded like a freight train. I don't recall how long we waited but it must have been an hour or so before we went back upstairs and tried calling our loved ones. The phones were down so we got in Mindy's car and headed toward home.
I remember the drive taking forever. There were cars and trucks all along the side of the road. There was so much water, puddles that were half way up the side of the car. The roofs and hoods on most of the cars had been dented by the huge hail stones. All I remember after finally arriving home was that my family was safe and we all sat and listened to each others account of what happened (mine was missing some minor details, like the beers). A few days later, we drove around the city and were shocked to see what damage the tornado had done. There was so much destruction. Trees had been uprooted or chain-sawed in half. Houses either completely wiped out or missing their roofs. It was horrifying to see the tornado's random path, what it destroyed and what it didn't. One side of the street leveled and the other still standing. How fortunate my family was, our neighborhood was only a few miles from where it touched down.
It was a long time before I felt calm during warm, rainy weather. Now that I knew what the start of a funnel cloud looked like, I saw them forming all the time. That was the only tornado I have lived through and hopefully I will never witness one first hand again. While it is kind of cool to say that I have seen and lived through a natural disaster, I don't EVER want to do that again.
Here is some footage of the tornado (please ignore the commentary by the twit filming it).
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