Tag: tornado

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Cottage Life

Lingering tornado debris sparks wildfire concerns in Tweed, Ont.

Photo by @vaughanweather/Twitte

It’s been nine months since a tornado tore through the Municipality of Tweed, Ont., north of Belleville, and yet the surrounding forests are still littered with downed trees and matted brush—prime conditions for a wildfire.

“You get a lightning strike, or you get a hot brake shoe coming off a vehicle, or a discarded cigarette, and you’ve got a Fort McMurray-level disaster here,” says Sandor Johnson, owner of the Potter Settlement Artisan Winery in Tweed.

Right now, Tweed’s fire risk status is high. And if the weather remains warm and dry, the municipality may introduce a burn ban. “All it takes is one ember to lift up and hit a dry spot,” says Sean Porter, Tweed’s fire prevention officer. “And before you can run and grab a rake or a bucket of water, it’s already outside the control of one individual.” 

Just last week, a transport truck broke down and caught fire at the end of Potter Settlement Road. 

And the day before that, Tweed’s fire department put out a run-away blaze a few kilometres from the tornado-damaged area.

“It was a matter of minutes before the fire just started running,” Porter says of the fire. “If that had happened 15 minutes to the west, we’d probably still be there. It’s a tinderbox over there.” 

The area affected by the tornado is so thick with downed trees that Porter says if a wildfire started, it would be unsafe to send in firefighters. Instead, the municipality would need to rely on water bombers.

Tweed has negotiated a five-year contract with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) to be covered by the ministry’s water bombing planes between April to November’s fire season. The service will cost the municipality $6,500 per year.

The water bombers, however, are generally based out of Dryden and Sudbury in Northern Ontario, meaning that if a wildfire did start, it could be an hour or two before the planes arrived. The other issue is that the swamps, puddles, and gullies that Tweed’s fire department typically draws from when fighting fires are low this spring. “It’s gone too fast,” Porter says. “We didn’t get a deep enough freeze this year, so a lot of the surface snow is just absorbed right back into the ground.”

After the tornado touched down on July 24, 2022, residents cleared trees and brush from private land. But the surrounding Crown land has been left mostly untouched. Fallen trees clog rivers and areas once used for hunting are now too dangerous to enter, according to a letter sent to the MNRF from Bob Mullin, Warden of Hastings County.

Tweed has been trying to bring in professional tree removal services since the tornado first hit, but the municipality lacked the funding to afford it. Council petitioned the provincial government for financial aid, warning about flood and wildfire threats from the downed trees. But Tweed was met with a lack of communication from both the MNRF and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH).

It wasn’t until March 20, 2023, eight months after the tornado, that the provincial government provided Tweed with funding to support clean-up efforts. The municipality received $1.2 million to remove fallen trees, clear debris from rivers, and start reforesting.

As part of this funding, residents with fallen trees within 30 metres of a structure on their property are being asked to submit a property access waiver and release form to have the fallen trees removed. This is intended to create a firebreak so that if a wildfire did start, it wouldn’t have any easy path to people’s homes.

But Johnson points out that most property owners did this within the first few days after the tornado. “This was the first thing that people did when the trees came down. They cut them around their house and their driveways,” he says. Instead, Johnson feels the municipality should be clearing any debris within 60 metres of people’s homes and businesses. “You get a forest fire and your house is like popcorn. It’s just going to burn up. Thirty metres is not enough.”

To keep your property safe from a wildfire, Porter says you don’t want cedar and pine trees within 10 metres of a structure because they catch fire easily. He also suggests trimming branches within six feet of the ground as they can be reached by a grass fire, which would in turn cause your structure to catch faster.

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Hockey Feed

Game interrupted by tornado warning, everyone forced to evacuate!

Laval Rocket

The Montreal Canadiens’ AHL affiliate club and the Chicago Blackhawks’ farm club Rockford IceHogs were forced to suspend their game on Friday night due to severe weather warnings.

During the game, fans and players attending were warned by a message on the Jumbo Tron urging people to evacuate their seats and follow the instructions given by the staff of the BMO Center for their safety.

I’ve never seen anything like this before…

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Cottage Life

This is what to expect from severe wind activity

Elena Berd/Shutterstock

Tracking and predicting severe wind events is a current challenge for meteorologists and researchers.

“In the past, we wouldn’t know that wind events were happening,” says Gerald Cheng, Warning Preparedness Meteorologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). “People have to report them.”

That is why ECCC meteorologists now watch social media for storm activity, in addition to sending out alerts. “When we see that the damage is extensive, we will survey the area,” says Cheng.

ECCC also partners with Western University’s Northern Tornado Project to monitor and capture tornados and downburst activity.

“In 2017, our first year of looking for tornados in forested areas of Ontario and Quebec, we saw a record-breaking tornado outbreak,” says David Sills, a doctor from Western University’s Northern Tornado Project (NTP). “That is because we were looking for them.”

Current NTP findings

The NTP found that tornadoes are being spotted later in the season, but the frequency of tornadoes is not increasing over time.

They are also comparing data from 1980 to 1990 and from 1991 to 2020 and are working on a new 30-year climate projection. Surprisingly, they found more severe wind activity in eastern and southern Quebec, not the prairies, where they expected to see it. The next dataset will determine if this is an actual trend or an anomaly.

In the meantime, the NTP is relying on satellite technology to track tornadoes and downbursts. “If there is damage, it pops up pretty quickly,” says Sills. “We have found tornados that would’ve otherwise been lost.”

How the ECCC monitors severe wind activity

The ECCC primarily uses radar technology to track weather patterns, but detecting severe wind activity continues to be difficult as the technology evolves.

To overcome these challenges, ECCC has put in 33 new radars since 2017, eight of which are in Ontario. These radars cover most of the province until the Fort Severn area. “If we to know if these events are on the rise, we will need a complete data set,” says Cheng.

Even with these advancements, predicting weather remains a challenge. “There’s a limit to the amount of lead time in predicting storms,” says Cheng. “Alerts are not 100 per cent accurate. People need to know the signs of severe weather.”

How can people prepare?

Public education is just as crucial as the alert system. There will always be a possibility of severe weather, so “people should check the forecast before going outside and be situationally aware when they are outdoors,” says Cheng.

ECCC recommends going to your basement when you are at home. If you are outside, stay low, protect your core, and seek shelter immediately.

And, when it comes to protecting cottages, Sills acknowledges a significant challenge. “Trees protect cottages from wind damage, but once in a while, a dead or decaying tree might also fall and cause damage,” he says.

Cottages near the shore are at an even greater risk. “There’s nothing to protect them from the winds coming across the lake. So, people should stormproof their shore,” Sills recommends.

Help the NTP and ECCC help Canadians. Report any severe wind damage by visiting the NTP website.

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Cottage Life

Small Eastern Ontario towns struggle with cleanup after tornado hits

Photo Courtesy of Jillian’s Antiques & Things/Facebook

On Sunday evening, around 8:30 p.m., Environment and Climate Change Canada sent out a severe weather alert to residents in the areas of Madoc, Tweed, and Marmora, Ont., 40 minutes north of Belleville. Minutes later, the sky cracked open and lightning, rain, and extreme wind gusts spilled out.

“It was quite a spectacular lightning show here on the south side of Moira Lake, looking north,” says Joe Kaehler, president of the Moira Lake Property Owners Association.

Cottagers on Moira Lake were battered by severe rainfall, but escaped the worst of the winds. The residents of the Municipality of Tweed—16 kilometres east of Moira Lake—and those in the town of Madoc—three kilometres north of Moira Lake—weren’t as lucky.

According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, an EF-1 tornado touched down in both municipalities, leaving a mile and a half track of damage along Hwy. 7. Wind speeds reached a peak of 175 km/h, felling trees across roadways, knocking out powerlines, and damaging properties.

Jillian’s Antiques & Things in Marmora had the tin roof ripped off one of its buildings, while Woodland North 62 Lavender Farm in Madoc had an entire barn collapse.

Collapsed Barn
Photo courtesy of Woodland North 62 Lavender Farm/Facebook

“I live in the north end of our municipality,” says Larry Rollins, deputy mayor of Madoc. “We got three inches of rain in half an hour. I have a walkout basement and I was very nervous that I was going to get flooded.”

The worst of the damage in Madoc happened in O’Hara Mill Homestead and Conservation Area, Rollins says. The wind took down big trees, blocked roads, and prevented people from leaving their homes. Starting Sunday night, Madoc’s volunteer fire department worked non-stop clearing debris. All roads were finally reopened on Monday night, and as of Tuesday morning, Hydro One reported that it had restored power to 40,000 customers affected by the storm.

The municipality of Tweed, which was hit even harder than Madoc, declared a state of emergency on Monday. “[Tweed] has places that used to look like wood lots and now look like fields,” Rollins says. “There’s no trees. The trees are completely destroyed…they’re just sticks.”

A friend of Rollins who lives in Tweed near the intersection of Hwy. 37 and Hwy. 7 lost two barns in the storm. “I’m on our building inspection board, and I’ve seen what it costs to put a building up,” Rollins says. “We’re talking two-and-a-half million to three million bucks to put [a barn] back up.

What Rollins finds most concerning is that Madoc hasn’t dealt with a wind event of this magnitude since 2002, and now the municipality’s been hit twice in two months. “Never ever happened before. Never. It’s really concerning because it’s climate change. And, you know, people talk about it, but nobody really does much about it.”

The May 21 derecho tore through Madoc, taking off roofs, collapsing barns, and downing trees, leaving some Madoc residents without power for up to two weeks. The municipality was forced to open its under-construction fire department as a shelter to the public. “There’s very few places to stay and eat in our municipality, even if you didn’t have a storm,” Rollins says.

After both storms, Madoc has been left footing the clean-up bill. According to Rollins, to receive financial assistance from the provincial government during a natural disaster, you must declare a state of emergency. But to receive funding, the municipality needs to first spend three per cent of its annual budget on recovery efforts.

“We’re not going to spend more than three per cent of our budget,” Rollins says. “$50,000 in our little municipality is a 2.3 per cent tax increase. We don’t play with millions, we play with thousands, so it’s a big deal.”

With a population of 2,400, Rollins says small municipalities such as Madoc are often overlooked in these kinds of situations. “I’m telling you if this tornado had gone down the 401 or the Don Valley, we’d still be talking about it six months from now. But when it happens in rural Ontario, it’s like you don’t matter.”

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Cottage Life

Timelines for repairing storm damage bleak as insurance and contractors grapple with surge in requests

Photo by Shutterstock/Paul McKinnon

The insurance industry is still calculating the cost of damage caused by the wind storm that ripped through Ontario on May 21, but adjusters are already saying it will be well over $30 million.

“Based on what we do know, it is a very significant event. This will be considered a catastrophe in insurance terms,” says Rob de Pruis, national director of consumer and industry relations with the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC). “An event that has $30 million or more in insured damages is formally tracked as a catastrophe.”

During the storm, tornadoes touched down in London and Uxbridge, winds snapped hydro poles and toppled transmission towers in Ottawa, and trees crashed through roofs in Peterborough. Insurers are working around the clock to process all of their customers’ claims, de Pruis says. But even with the extra effort, it could take weeks before an insurance adjuster is able to look at your claim.

“We’re dealing with not only homes, vehicles, and businesses, but also secondary residences like cottages, as well as aircraft and marine, and all these other areas that can be impacted,” de Pruis says.

Insurance companies have catastrophe response plans in place for major events, such as the May 21 storm. When the plans are implemented, the insurance companies sort their claims into a priority sequence. “People that have significant damage where they can’t live in their property would be put into a higher priority than someone who may have a vehicle that’s dented,” de Pruis says.

Other factors that can delay a claim’s processing is finding a contractor to do the necessary work. Kevin Stairs of Glenwood Construction out of Peterborough says he’s been swamped with calls, but due to project commitments booked before the storm, requests for work on major structural damage are being pushed into 2023. Some projects are being scheduled as far into the future as 2024, he says.

“If you go back even a few years, the Peterborough area had the 407 coming then the housing market started heating up, and then COVID, and catch up due to supply chain issues. So, most good contractors are booking months and months out,” he says.

When he can, Stairs is slotting in smaller projects that take a day or less, such as replacing a window that got broken during the storm. But the lack of availability of local contractors is forcing many people to hire contractors from out of town.

“I would advise anybody that calls us, if we can’t get to them right away, which in most cases we can’t, to do their research on the contractor they’re calling, especially if they’re from out of town,” Stairs says. “Don’t pay a deposit until you’re certain that the person is going to come back and actually perform the work.”

Before you have a contractor start working on your property, make sure you document the damage from the storm for your insurance claim. Once it’s safe to do so, de Pruis suggests taking pictures and videos of the damage and writing out a list of all the damaged and destroyed items.

If you have receipts for any of the damaged items, make sure to collect those for the insurance adjuster. Even if you’ve documented the damaged item with a picture, don’t dispose of it until after the insurance adjuster has had a chance to fully assess your claim. They may want to see the damaged item in person.

Will the storm damage cause my insurance premiums to rise?

Some good news on the insurance front is that the damage from the storm shouldn’t increase your premiums. “Typically, no one single event leads to an automatic increase in insurance premiums. The insurance companies are well prepared and very well capitalized for these events. This is what they do. This is what they’re here for,” de Pruis says.

“The principle of insurance is the premiums of the many are paying for the losses of the few. The more you can spread out that risk over larger areas, the more stable premiums become so that particular communities are not significantly impacted or have significant changes in premiums because of one event.”

Since most insurers are global companies, a storm in Ontario won’t affect premiums. What will affect premiums, de Pruis says, is a steady increase in the frequency and severity of weather events.

“Between 1983 and 2008, the insurance industry was paying out on average about $422 million in severe weather-related losses across the country. Over the past decade, that number has increased to over $2.1 billion on average, annually. That’s more than a four-fold increase in the overall costs of severe weather damage,” de Pruis says.

Most home and recreational property insurance plans will cover severe weather, such as wind damage. But to make sure you’re covered, de Pruis advises reviewing your policy.

“A lot of this conversation is about preparedness. To make sure that people do have some type of a plan. Even something as simple as knowing what phone number to call if you do have a claim,” de Pruis says. “Having that information readily available so you can start the process can be very helpful.”

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Cottage Life

Experts weigh in on how damaging the May long weekend storm was

Photo Courtesy of Hydro One/Twitter

Around mid-day on May 21, dark clouds eclipsed Ontario skies, unleashing torrential rain and howling winds. In its wake, it left behind fallen trees, damaged homes, and widespread power outages. The culprit is what experts call a derecho storm.

Derecho, a Spanish word meaning straight ahead, is a long-lasting, fast-moving thunderstorm that can unleash winds as fast as a tornado. Unlike a tornado, a derecho’s winds don’t spiral. Instead, they blow in a straight path.

“When it becomes extreme, the wind speeds start to exceed 100 to 110 kilometres an hour, and they last for 600 kilometres or more,” explained Peter Kimbell, an Environment Canada meteorologist. Derechos are caused by the downdrafts from thunderstorms. This particular storm was caused by a heat dome over the eastern U.S.

Kitchener recorded the highest measured wind speeds at 132 kilometres per hour, but Kimbell says it’s likely winds reached even higher speeds in areas where there weren’t measuring devices.

After analysing data collected during the storm, the Northern Tornado Project (NTP), a research group based out of Western University, hypothesized that the worst-hit areas appeared to be Ottawa, Uxbridge, and London. Based on the group’s data, the NTP says it believes wind speeds reached 190 kilometres per hour in Ottawa, creating a five-kilometre-wide path of intense damage.

Both Uxbridge and London experienced tornadoes, according to the NTP. In Uxbridge, the tornado touched down around 1:15 p.m., travelling 4.26 kilometres and reaching a max wind speed of 195 kilometres per hour. The rooves of two apartment buildings were torn off.

In London, two tornadoes touched down. The first occurred at 11:36 a.m., travelling 5.6 kilometres through the northeast section of the city, reaching a max wind speed of 160 kilometres per hour, damaging an airport hangar door and flipping over a plane. The second tornado touched down in the south section of the city at 11:39 a.m., travelling 3.4 kilometres and reaching a max wind speed of 175 kilometres per hour.

And this is only what’s been recorded so far, Kimbell says. “Undoubtedly, there is damage elsewhere in cottage country that probably was equivalent, or maybe even greater, but we don’t know because we haven’t been there to find out.”

The storm left over 650,000 Ontario residents without power, according to Hydro One. In a statement released on Thursday, the company said that it “anticipates power will be restored to 99 per cent of customers affected by the storm by Friday evening. Due to the severity of damage, some customers in rural, remote, and island locations in the Perth and Bancroft areas will be without power for several more days. In the Tweed area, a small number of customers may be without power for several more weeks due to the extraordinary level of damage.”

The storm took down 1,900 hydro poles, broke 300 hydro pole cross arms, and damaged 200 transformers. Hydro One has 3,200 people working to repair the necessary infrastructure, including out-of-province and international contractors.

“When rebuilding after a storm, Hydro One prioritizes restoration to bring power back to the greatest number of customers in the shortest period of time. Crews need to repair and rebuild main power lines along with other key pieces of infrastructure before repairs can be made to power lines that serve a smaller numbers of customers,” the company said.

Right before the storm hit, Environment and Climate Change Canada broadcasted a severe thunderstorm warning to people’s cellphones across Ontario. According to ECCC, to warrant a wireless alert, there either needs to be a tornado warning or a thunderstorm exhibiting wind gusts of 130 kilometres per hour or greater, or baseball-sized hail (seven centimetres) or greater.

This was the first derecho to hit Ontario since 1999. While Kimbell says he can’t speak to whether climate change will increase the frequency of this type of event, he does point out that there has been no increase in thunderstorms, which cause derechos, across the country in the last 20 years. “We do get these nasty events every now and then. But we don’t see an increase of thunderstorm activity so far.”