WATCH ABOVE: It’s been 15 years since a deadly tornado ripped through a Pine Lake campground. Jessica Kent has the details.
EDMONTON — Fifteen years ago, a tornado tore through roughly 10 kilometres of Green Acres Resort Campground Beach on Pine Lake, killing 12 people and injuring 100 others.
The Category 3 tornado uprooted trees, flattened cars, and hurled RVs into the water.
“I’ve been here for 18 years, at the lake. I’d been here about five years prior to the tornado,” recalled Shawn Urquhart.
“I was back out as fast as I could to help them rebuild the park, do everything I could, and I came back with my tent and moved back in here as quick as I could. I’ve been here ever since. It’s a beautiful place.”
Insurance covered much of the cost of the massive cleanup in 2000. But, removing the mountains of debris took months for the community, which sits about 45 kilometres southeast of Red Deer. During those months, residents had to come together and help one another get through the toughest of days.
“Fifteen years ago, I was a firefighter with Red Deer County Fire and we responded to the disaster 20 minutes after it happened,” said Daryl Borchuk. “I was in Red Deer at the time and we knew something was going on.
“The hair on the back of our neck was standing up.
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“When we got to the site it was a day like this … It was beautiful right after. It was unbelievable,” Borchuk recalled. “Even just talking about it brings back a lot of memories of all the things that were going on there.”
“I’d say about 30 or 40 trailers were in the lake completely and the whole centre of the campground was cleared right out.”
At the time, it was the first deadly tornado in Canada since 1994 and a challenge for rescue workers as well as people in the community.
“”We learned quite a bit,” said Borchuck. “This was a unique situation because of its location. Cellular phone communication was down and there was a coordination of fire departments from just about every town within about two hours of this area. The communication and coordination of all of the groups that were here was a real learning experience.”
“All the big trees were gone. There was nothing but stubs sticking out of the ground and bent-up trailer frames all over the place,” he said.
“One truck, I remember, was rolled into a ball,” said Urquhart. “A three-quarter-tonne truck right in the centre of the park. It wasn’t very nice looking. It’s unbelievable the amount of damage that was done. We were having a hard time getting through all the stuff. There were propane tanks everywhere.”
In the 15 years since, the campground and beach have been cleaned up and redesigned with the impact of the disaster in mind. The campground has built a memorial park surrounded by 12 trees to commemorate those who lost their lives that day.
“We used to go down and have a little celebration for it but we don’t do that anymore,” said Urquhart. “We’re trying to let it go by and be gone. It’s kind of hard on some people and so we like to let people do what they’d like to do to remember it.
“We go down and stand by the bridge occasionally and have a little thought about it and then there’s a memorial site down there that they were good enough to put down there for us. We go around that every now and then and have a peek at it and think back to the people that weren’t fortunate enough to make it through it.”
While the emotional wounds are still fresh for many, the physical evidence of the 2000 Pine Lake tornado is less obvious.
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