Devastation in Leamington
June 9, 2010 11:05 AM Subscribe
News, photos and video of the devastation has begun to appear online, as power is restored to the area: the storm that hit Leamington Ontario early Sunday morning was part of a system that killed 7 people in Ohio, but which incredibly caused no fatalities when it hit in the Canadian town of 20,000.
(My childhood home was at 6:56 in the first video).
posted by HLD at 11:12 AM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by HLD at 11:12 AM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
. . . . . . .
So sad. And scary. We've been getting some awful storms in central Ohio with tornado alarms - even that is terrifying to me.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 11:13 AM on June 9, 2010
So sad. And scary. We've been getting some awful storms in central Ohio with tornado alarms - even that is terrifying to me.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 11:13 AM on June 9, 2010
We were driving back to Cleveland from Charlotte, NC on Sunday and must've hit the tail end of the same storm in the mountains in W. Virginia -- I'm not normally rattled by any kind of driving conditions but that was scary.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 11:15 AM on June 9, 2010
posted by bitter-girl.com at 11:15 AM on June 9, 2010
This same system damaged over 1,000 homes (destroying 20 or so) in Dundee, Michigan. The town is still under emergency shutdown with only residents and contractors allowed in.
posted by HuronBob at 11:17 AM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by HuronBob at 11:17 AM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
Seems like the weather lately just blows.
I mean, literally. As in wind.
posted by kinnakeet at 11:28 AM on June 9, 2010
I mean, literally. As in wind.
posted by kinnakeet at 11:28 AM on June 9, 2010
Will ketchup prices go up this summer?
Garrison? Is that you?
posted by basicchannel at 11:28 AM on June 9, 2010
Garrison? Is that you?
posted by basicchannel at 11:28 AM on June 9, 2010
I hate to say it, but since no one was killed, I feel most badly for the trees. We can fairly easily rebuild someone's garage in a few months, but it will take decades to grow trees that size.
What is the music in the second video? It sounds so familiar and it's driving me nuts.
posted by desjardins at 11:33 AM on June 9, 2010
What is the music in the second video? It sounds so familiar and it's driving me nuts.
posted by desjardins at 11:33 AM on June 9, 2010
The music is "Any Other Name" - YouTube showed me an ad for the album at the bottom of the video.
posted by GuyZero at 11:35 AM on June 9, 2010
posted by GuyZero at 11:35 AM on June 9, 2010
This same system damaged over 1,000 homes (destroying 20 or so) in Dundee, Michigan. The town is still under emergency shutdown with only residents and contractors allowed in.
It sure did. My SO was assigned (coincidentally) to drive the Dundee area for her digital cartography job just after the storm hit but before the shutdown. I would post some of the insane photos she collected, but I presume they are proprietary. Anyways, the crazy story here is that while she was driving around the Dundee area surveying the destruction, unbeknownst to her and everyone, a 64 year-old woman was trapped under the rubble of her roof - all that was left of her home.
But there is a happy ending.
posted by joe lisboa at 11:52 AM on June 9, 2010
It sure did. My SO was assigned (coincidentally) to drive the Dundee area for her digital cartography job just after the storm hit but before the shutdown. I would post some of the insane photos she collected, but I presume they are proprietary. Anyways, the crazy story here is that while she was driving around the Dundee area surveying the destruction, unbeknownst to her and everyone, a 64 year-old woman was trapped under the rubble of her roof - all that was left of her home.
But there is a happy ending.
posted by joe lisboa at 11:52 AM on June 9, 2010
So, gay marriage is legal in Canada, right? And not in Ohio?
And people died from a storm in Ohio? But not in Canada? I think I know what God is trying to tell us.
posted by symbioid at 11:59 AM on June 9, 2010 [3 favorites]
And people died from a storm in Ohio? But not in Canada? I think I know what God is trying to tell us.
posted by symbioid at 11:59 AM on June 9, 2010 [3 favorites]
Do tornadoes make it up to Canada regularly? I never really thought of them getting that far north.
posted by doctor_negative at 12:11 PM on June 9, 2010
posted by doctor_negative at 12:11 PM on June 9, 2010
Dundee is 25 miles south of here, but even this far away the storms were intense. Pretty nearly everybody I knew here spent the night in their basements, listening to the radio and checking weathermaps online, and keeping each other up to date on the conditions outside via Twitter.
If anything, it's remarkable there wasn't more damage, flooding and casualties. Southeast Michigan dodged a bullet that night and I'm sorry that southwest Ontario wasn't as lucky.
posted by ardgedee at 12:13 PM on June 9, 2010
If anything, it's remarkable there wasn't more damage, flooding and casualties. Southeast Michigan dodged a bullet that night and I'm sorry that southwest Ontario wasn't as lucky.
posted by ardgedee at 12:13 PM on June 9, 2010
doctor_negative, we don't get many of them, but southern Ontario has seen a few doozies. And just last summer, we had tornadoes touch down in Vaughan, just north of Toronto. Another touchdown in the same massive storm killed a boy in Durham.
posted by maudlin at 12:18 PM on June 9, 2010
posted by maudlin at 12:18 PM on June 9, 2010
That storm was quite a piece of work -- the Storm Prediction Center's report for 05-Jun-2010 shows tornadoes from this storm hitting Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.
Canada gets no love from this page -- the US National Weather Service only tracks events in the US.
posted by eriko at 12:42 PM on June 9, 2010
Canada gets no love from this page -- the US National Weather Service only tracks events in the US.
posted by eriko at 12:42 PM on June 9, 2010
The federal Minister of State for Science and Technology, Gary Goodyear was in Leamington today (three days after the storm), but said that no money would be made available until the province applies for it. Fake lake indeed.
posted by HLD at 1:03 PM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by HLD at 1:03 PM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
I have nothing but empathy for the folks in Leamington, and perhaps the photos aren't doing justice to the level of damage. But when I think of devastation from a tornado, I think of Barneveld, Wisconsin, which was hit by an F5 on June 8, 1984. (Photo gallery). A swath through the center of that town was just gone. Nine people were killed and more than 90 homes destroyed. (If you wonder after seeing the pics, the water tower's freakish survival was apparently due to its aerodynamic shape.)
The article I linked there recounts a story of a gas can that was found in Green Bay (171 miles as the Google flies) and I can remember people talking about individual stems of hay that were driven into aluminum siding. Here's Wikipedia on the Fujita Scale, and the Enhanced Fujita Scale which has since replaced it.
posted by dust of the stars at 1:06 PM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
The article I linked there recounts a story of a gas can that was found in Green Bay (171 miles as the Google flies) and I can remember people talking about individual stems of hay that were driven into aluminum siding. Here's Wikipedia on the Fujita Scale, and the Enhanced Fujita Scale which has since replaced it.
posted by dust of the stars at 1:06 PM on June 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
And yet, this tornado was a stinkin' little F0 in Ohio and an F1 in Canada. They laugh at F1s in Oklahoma and Nebraska. Think if it had F'd up a few points on the Fujita scale. Toledo might be sitting on top of Leamington right now.
posted by Faze at 1:08 PM on June 9, 2010
posted by Faze at 1:08 PM on June 9, 2010
Scary stuff. Hard to fathom how some of those huge trees that survived for 50 years or more judging from the thickness of the trunks were ripped out of the ground roots and all in one fell swoop by a storm. We used to go to the Leamington Tomato Festival every year when I was younger; that was my Dad's idea of a hot time (forget Cedar Point, let's go watch the Tomato Stomp!) My heart goes out to those folks in Leamington, Dundee, and Perrysburg.
posted by Oriole Adams at 2:47 PM on June 9, 2010
posted by Oriole Adams at 2:47 PM on June 9, 2010
They laugh at F1s in Oklahoma and Nebraska.
Leamington looks like Times Square compared to Nebraska and Oklahoma.
posted by GuyZero at 3:00 PM on June 9, 2010
Leamington looks like Times Square compared to Nebraska and Oklahoma.
posted by GuyZero at 3:00 PM on June 9, 2010
GuyZero: "They laugh at F1s in Oklahoma and Nebraska.Leamington looks like Times Square compared to Nebraska and Oklahoma."
Leamington has 30k people in it. For comparison, the town my grandparents live in, Salina KS, has roughly 45k people in town. The famous Greensburg disaster hit a town of roughly 1.5k. I think there's something about large metro areas that influences weather patterns, cuz it's pretty rare to see tornadoes where I'm at in KC.
posted by pwnguin at 5:15 PM on June 9, 2010
Leamington has 30k people in it. For comparison, the town my grandparents live in, Salina KS, has roughly 45k people in town. The famous Greensburg disaster hit a town of roughly 1.5k. I think there's something about large metro areas that influences weather patterns, cuz it's pretty rare to see tornadoes where I'm at in KC.
posted by pwnguin at 5:15 PM on June 9, 2010
desjardins I believe that's the theme to American Beauty
posted by any major dude at 6:04 PM on June 9, 2010
posted by any major dude at 6:04 PM on June 9, 2010
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posted by GuyZero at 11:10 AM on June 9, 2010