Cleanup efforts were underway Tuesday in a town located about 90 kilometres north of Edmonton after a violent storm passed through the community.
“Due to last night’s storm, there is a significant amount of debris on the roads,” the Town of Westlock posted on its Facebook page early Tuesday morning. “Our operations department has been working since midnight to clear trees and debris.
“We are collecting and hauling the debris to the gravel lot north of the curling rink at the Westlock Rotary Spirit Centre.”
Westlock was among several areas hit hard by a summer storm on Monday night. Environment and Climate Change Canada even confirmed that a tornado touched down about 25 kilometres outside the community of Wildwood, Alta., on Monday night.
“We had a lot of thunderstorm activity develop west of Drayton Valley,” Justin Shelley, a meteorologist with ECCC, told Global News on Tuesday.
“Afterwards, a long line of thunderstorms formed sort of west of Edmonton up north towards Westlock and it looks like it produced a widespread area of what are called straight-line winds, where you get very strong winds associated with an outflow of a thunderstorm.
“It looks like, based on radar, those wind gusts were likely in the 80 to 100 km/h range.”
The Town of Westlock said it has contracted two companies to help with the cleanup: Eagle Excavating-Westlock and Trevor Hunt Enterprises.
“They are travelling with chippers around residential areas to assist with debris,” town officials said. “Debris that can be put through the chipper is at no cost. Larger pieces can be taken to the curling rink site.”
A Global News crew in Westlock on Tuesday saw trees snapped in half and homes where shingles had been ripped off roofs.