Environment Canada is taking a close look at videos taken by residents east of Calgary and trying and determine if the 113 kilometre an hour winds that ripped through Nightingale Saturday night may have been caused by a tornado.
Chuck Turner’s farm was hit so hard the tarp roof ripped from his barn. After a frightening night, he was able to round up all his sheep but a few chickens were still missing Sunday.
“It was blowing so hard that it was moving the car. So we actually took cover down in a coolee,” Turner said.
Trees split in two, 1,800 pounds of bail tossed hundreds of metres, the dog run was destroyed and his two-year-old’s playhouse was thrown across the yard.
“You don’t realize the damage and the strength that mother nature has until you’re in the middle of it,” Turner said.
Just down the road, five grain bins were blown across fields and one narrowly missed a house.
“My wife saw the first one that we noticed, rolling across the field in front of us and hitting the trees back here. It was then that we went to the back window and saw the one that crossed our property. It came within about ten feet of hitting our house and then took out one of the fences on the other side,” Kevin Abel, a Nightingale resident, said.
A downed tree near Airdrie cut off electricity to that city for about three hours Sunday morning.
Massive hail was recorded across Alberta with some of the biggest falling west of Calgary, up to 64 milimetres in diametre in places like Bottrel.
Many farmers east of Calgary were just a month or two away from harvesting a bumper crop but obviously Saturday’s storm took a toll on their fields.
“It was turning out to be a really good year, and everything was coming out nice and early too, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a good year anymore. Not around here anyway,” Abel said.
While farmers assess the damage, family friends and neighbours pitched in to help.
“Some sweat and tears and we’ll get through it,” Turner said.