Almost the entire front page of today’s Edmonton Journal was taken up by a large photograph and story about a tragic severe storm that struck late Saturday. the severe storm struck about 6 o’clock, Alberta time.
It happened about 60 miles south of Edmonton in South Alberta which is in Western Canada.
The huge storm could not have picked a worse place or a worse time to strike,
It so happened that thousands of people had gathered (and camping out) at a huge country music festival called the Big Valley Jamboree. It is Canada’s largest such festival and as many as 15,000 attend for the four-day event. The final performances scheduled for today were, of course canceled.
One person was killed and about 75 injured. About 20 were taken to hospitals and two were in critical condition.
The scene was described as outright pandemonium. Thousands were scrambling for cover and many thought it was a tornado.
The stage collapsed and musical instruments and chairs were flying through the air.
There was quite a bit of wind damage also in Edmonton. Thery also had a damaging thunderstorm a couple of weeks ago.
Most people assume that Canada is too cool and too far north to have tornadoes. Not so. The main area for tornadoes in Canada is out on the plains east of the Canadian Rockies. They do not get near as many as the USA which is the world leader.
Wasn’t it about a month ago when two gentlemen from Oklahoma traveled to NW Ontario for a fishing outing and were killed by a tornado? The tornado destroyed their fishing cabin and blew it into the lake. Tornadoes are almost unheard of in that part of Canada. A real irony since those guys were from a tornado prone state.
