EDMONTON – For some, 25 years might seem like a long time ago, but for those who lived through the terrifying events of the tornado now known as Black Friday, it seems like yesterday.
July 31st marks the 25th anniversary of Black Friday in Edmonton. The day is a stark reminder of loss, fear and tragedy, but also of survival and healing.
On July 31st, 1987, a powerful tornado tore through Edmonton’s east side, killing 27 people and injuring hundreds of others. Fifteen of the deaths happened in the Evergreen Mobile Park in northeast Edmonton.
Nancy Desjarlais Hollman and her then two and a half year old son Aaron survived the tornado that struck the mobile park where they lived, but she says it’s a memory she will never forget.
“It’s something that will never go away. It will always be there with me forever,” says Hollman.
When Aaron was small, Hollman would lay her son down for his nap in the master bedroom. For some reason, on that July day in 1987, she didn’t. Hollman says it was that decision that saved both their lives.
“I had a guardian angel by my side because I always laid him down in the master bedroom of our trailer and that day I did not,” she recalls.
“If we would have been in that room, I wouldn’t be sitting here today talking about my story,” Hollman told Global News.
She remembers it was a cloudy day, and after she laid Aaron down for a nap, the sky started to get darker. The power went out and it got very windy. She says she could hear the roof creaking, so she went in to check on her son sleeping.
Hollman laid down beside him and wrapped Aaron in a blanket and held him against her chest. As the noise grew louder she grew more afraid because she didn’t know what the noise was, or what amount of danger she was in.
“I remember landing in a sitting position and not being able to breathe… I kept telling myself ‘I need to breathe, I need to breathe.’”
Hollman managed to get her breath back and that’s when she started screaming for Aaron.
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“I looked around and saw his bedroom furniture and toys lying all over, but he wasn’t around me.”
She kept screaming. Hollman says what still haunts her to this day is hearing everyone else’s screams too. She doesn’t recall how long she laid there yelling, but water was pouring down on her and she kept putting her face up into it to avoid passing out.
“I felt around and as I was feeling around I felt a piece of cloth which I yanked towards me. I am yanking on that thing and all of a sudden I hear ‘Mommy, mommy, I am cold’ and I cried so hard,” explains Hollman.
Aaron had landed not too far away from her. He was still wrapped in the blanket. Hollman pulled her son to her chest and continued to scream for help. She says it felt like an eternity until she saw the shadow of a person above her.
“He managed to pull debris off of us, and when he did, he asked me to get up and I said I would try. He took my son first out of the rubble and he came back for me,” says Hollman.
“I tried to do my best to get up but I couldn’t, so he bent down and grabbed me by the arms and pulled me up, threw me over his shoulder, and took me to the vehicle that was not that far away.”
When Hollman looked around she couldn’t believe what she saw. She describes the scene looking like a bomb had gone off in the trailer park. When she asked what had happened, and was told a tornado had struck the park, she was in shock.
“What I saw was total devastation. Vehicles overturned, mobile homes overturned; shocking, shocking scene, the debris that was everywhere.”
Hollman was carried to a car, but was in serious pain from her injuries. The vehicle was already filled with people, but the man was able to drive them all to the hospital.
Hollman believes she blacked out a few times before being taken to the Royal Alexandra hospital in the back of a truck.
While she was in the hospital, Aaron stayed with a woman that – until the tornado – Hollman had never met.
“This lady came to me and told me ‘I’ll take care of your son, trust me.”
The woman gave Hollman her phone number and address, so that Aaron’s dad could pick him up later.
From the hospital, Hollman kept calling her husband’s aunt until she finally got through. She told her to let her husband know where she was and passed along the address and information of the lady who was taking care of Aaron.
Hollman suffered a deep laceration on her upper right leg which needed plastic surgery, and a broken pelvis.
“I kept saying ‘I am not going to die. I am not going to die. I am hurting but I am not going anywhere.”
She didn’t see her husband until later that night when he arrived at the hospital. He was unsure if his family was alive. Hollman says the experience was very traumatic for him as well.
Twenty-five years later, Hollman has never had the chance to thank the unknown man who pulled her and her son out of the rubble that day. She realizes that if it weren’t for him, she may have never been able to escape from under the debris.
“I just want to say thank you so much for being where you were that day,” says Hollman.
While telling her story, Hollman is still overwhelmed by what happened that day.
“I am just thankful that we lived, and my son, I didn’t lose my son,” says Hollman. “I just look at him now and think wow, I am so lucky.”
Aaron is now 27 years old and has a son who is the same age Aaron was when he survived the tornado 25 years ago. Hollman says she looks at her grandson and thinks back on Aaron’s life, and how things could have been different.
She still gets very apprehensive whenever someone mentions a tornado. Since Black Friday she has educated herself on storms and what to expect, and she is once again trying to enjoy summer, despite the fear it brings.
“Summer is not my favourite time of year anymore,” says Hollman.
The tornado that struck the city reached speeds of 400 kilometres per hour and left a wake of destruction through most of Edmonton’s east side. It damaged more than 1,000 homes and caused hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage.
Twenty-five years later, it is still considered to be one of the worst natural disasters in Canadian history.
With files from Laurel Clark
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