‘We feel lucky — and a bit traumatized’

Tanner Lemieux wasn’t surprised to learn the violent winds that tore through River Heights and reached their peak near his home Sunday night have been classified as a tornado.

While driving back to his Lindsay Street home from a shopping trip with his wife Sunday, it became clear they were not in the middle of an ordinary thunderstorm when rain and wind started coming from every direction and hit every side of their truck.

The forceful wind made it impossible for him to open his door after they had parked. He climbed through the window, over the top of his vehicle, and the couple struggled to fight the whipping winds to make it into the house.

“As we were running in, the wind started pulling me backwards out of the door,” he told the Free Press while cleaning debris from his yard Thursday.

Thirty seconds after they made it inside, collected their two dogs, and rushed to the basement, the wind picked up even more. Two massive trees in his backyard came down: one split right in half and hit their fence. Branches flew off the other tree and ripped their hydro meter off their house. The tornado even pushed over their neighbour’s car.

“We feel lucky — and a bit traumatized,” he said.

After investigating the damaged area, the Northern Tornadoes Project confirmed a tornado had hit south River Heights at 6:30 p.m. It reached a maximum speed of 155 km/h, travelled about two kilometres and was 150 metres wide.

The tornadoes project classified it as an EF1 tornado, which reaches wind speeds of 135 to 175 km/h. The scale ranges from EF0 to EF5 by intensity.

Sunday’s storm downed power lines, felled trees and caused property damage in a chunk of River Heights and several other areas of the city.

The tornado project’s co-ordinates pinpoint part of Lindsay Street as the location with the worst damage. That’s steps away from Lemieux’s home. Tornado investigators went to his property several times following the storm and collected video from his door camera.

No one was hurt, something Lemieux called “miraculous.” He said the storm was so severe that everyone had taken shelter before the tornado touched down.

“You can’t control Mother Nature, that’s the one thing we’ve learned,” he said.

Power was knocked out to thousands of customers Sunday. Some of them had no electricity for 72 hours before power was restored around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Hydro crews worked Thursday to restore a stretch of street lights.

Manitoba Hydro spokesman Peter Chura said Sunday’s storm heavily damaged a small area, which made it difficult for heavy machinery to access so crews could make repairs.

“This was a pretty unique situation,” he said. “We have employees with more than 30 years of experience repairing damage and restoring power from storms who hadn’t seen anything like this, where so much damage was done in such a confined area.”

The tornadoes project confirmed a second tornado touched down Sunday in the village of Bénard, just west of Elie.

No alerts were sent to cellphones because the tornado formed and dissipated too quickly, said Brian Proctor, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

While other tornadoes can be on the ground for a half hour or longer, this tornado likely touched down for five to 10 minutes, he said.

“The (wind was) really spinning up very rapidly, wasn’t on the ground for that long, and it’s not one of those sort of super well-defined situations or circumstances that allows you to really push out those tornado warnings,” he said.

The severe thunderstorm warning Environment Canada published ahead of the storm included a warning about possible tornadoes, said Proctor.

The incident was Winnipeg’s second tornado this summer; the first hit the Whyte Ridge area in June.

Manitoba has had 15 confirmed tornadoes this year.

“We’ve had a very, very active summer severe weather season,” said Proctor. “It’s been incredibly active, so I think we’re starting to see people really be tuned in to the fact that we can get that kind of weather, but also getting a little fatigued by it at the same time.”

The tornadoes project, which is based out of Western University in London, Ont., uses drone surveying, satellite imagery and on-the-ground investigations.

It isn’t common for two tornadoes to strike in Winnipeg in one summer, but where they touch down is “scattershot” in nature, said David Sills, director of the project.

“The fact that we got two EF1 (tornadoes) in Winnipeg proper this summer is probably more chance, coincidence, than anything else,” he said.

More surprising, he said, is the fact Winnipeg has not had a EF2-level or higher tornado since 1980, despite the highest-rated documented tornado in Canada’s history having touched down in Elie, west of Winnipeg, in 2007. That tornado was registered as an EF5, the highest rating on the scale, where wind speeds reach 315 km/h or more.

“With the low number of tornadoes across that area, it’s really hard to know if it’s just something random, or if there is actually some reason for there being a lack of strong tornadoes in Winnipeg proper.”

Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Northern Tornadoes Project began formally collaborating this year. The federal government agency focuses on forecasting and the project assesses storm damage.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca