Talk about getting a bunch of disaster scenerios overwith all at once! The day started out promising rain. Sure, a few sprinkles for the garden. But that just wasn't enough for Mother Nature. She started with a little rattle and roll as the earth moved. Some people felt it; some didn't. I didn't. (Did the earth move for you? Um.... no. *sniff*) A friend I talked to later didn't either. She was standing in a doorway in town chatting with someone when people from upstairs came running down exclaiming about an earthquake. Their apartment was shaking, they said. Friend said she thought they were nuts, but then others were carrying on too. Only one picture on my wall was crooked, and a cat might have done that. Oh well. Earthquakes are unusual hereabouts and this one was almost immediately tagged as a 5.5 quake with the epicenter in Ottawa.
And I missed it.
Then came the spectacular storm. This wasn't just rain. This was RAIN!! It poured down so hard it was difficult to see more than a couple feet out the window. The thunder and lightening was sincere, to say the least. It hadn't seemed particularly windy, but when I went out later to do an errand I noticed debris under big trees and on the side of roads, badly rutted driveways and road shoulders, etc. The driveway of the home I was going to was rutted and beat up and when the homeowner came to the door, he said they were dealing with a flooded basement.
Ow.
Turned out he wasn't alone. The storm caused all kinds of flooding, and rumour has it that lightening started a fire in a factory on the highway. (Unconfirmed.) It also spawned a tornado. They aren't usual here either. In the paper, this was called a "suspected tornado" and was later confirmed as an F2 twister.
I had gone out to do the errand after the storm, because the power was out at home. This is NOT unusual in this area. Turned out about 8,000 residents had no power after the tornado hit. It took out.. yes.. of course... a trailer camp, along with several businesses, either flattening them or knocking down walls. It had touched down in some farm fields before hitting town leaving a lot of damage in its wake.
It's AMAZING that no one was killed. It was after hours, so some of the businesses hit were locked up for the day. The factory that lost two of its walls had a shift working, but somehow they all got out in good shape. Several people were taken to hospital by ambulance with injuries, but none, it turns out, were very serious. There's a lot of damage though, and a lot of cleaning up to be done. The town in question is officially a disaster zone which frees up public funding for the clean up, so that will help.
Tornados and trailers. Do you ever wonder just what that's about? Disasters.. all at once. Now I wonder about that too.
Arma~~geddon~~ carry me ho~o~ome~~~
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