Last Week's Tornados

A week ago today, on September 21, my cell phone emitted a loud whistle. I looked over and saw a tornado warning. Ottawa residents were being urged to seek cover - preferably in a basement, until the danger had passed.

I walked over to the window to look for a funnel cloud, while Terry switched to the weather network radar on his computer.

There it is, he said. That must be it - that little red blob... It just split in two. I think it's missing us... One part is heading north of us, and the other part is heading south of us.

Should we go into the basement? I asked.

No, it's going to miss us, Terry replied.



So, instead of going into the basement, I watched the clouds sail past. They were moving rather quickly, I noted. But not long afterwards, the wind died down.

Is the danger over? I asked Terry.

Not yet. There's a bit more to come, he replied, his eyes glued to the weather radar. More clouds and wind followed. Then the electricity flickered and went off.

A few minutes later, the sky was pink and it was raining.

It missed us...

We expected the power to come back on before long - but it didn't...

We had no idea how much devastation had occurred around us. As we saw bits of news - on my cell phone, which was still, thankfully, working, we read that there had been two tornados: The northern arm wrecked havoc in several small towns along the Ottawa River, before crossing into Quebec and destroying houses, apartment buildings and an elementary school in Gatineau, Quebec. Fortunately, at 6 pm on a Friday evening, no children were in the building.

The southern arm of the tornado, had raced within two kilometers of our home, knocking down trees and hydro-electric poles, flipping over a truck, tearing off roofs and parts of buildings, lifting the roof off a large church, and then totally destroying one of Ottawa's two main electric power distribution stations - leaving 40% of the city without electricity.

Later aerial photos showed that there hadn't been two tornados - there had been been six!

But we knew none of this at that time. In the dark, battery-powered flashlights were all we had. We had no access to radio or TV. Some of our neighbors lost their land line phone connections as well. My cell phone with its limited data plan was our main connection to the world beyond our neighborhood.

It would be days before we fully realized how much damage had been caused by the little red blob moving across Terry's computer screen.