Survivors recall horror of Pine Lake tornado
Eighteen years ago, ‘absolute chaos’ hit Alberta, forcing 1,700 people to evacuate
Soon after the deadly tornado struck the Green Acres campground near Pine Lake in 2000, first responder RCMP Const. Dan Doyle was asked by reporters to assess the aftermath.
His response about the F-3 category storm that left 12 people dead, 140 injured and 1,000 others displaced, was nothing if not blunt.
“It’s unbelievable to see what Mother Nature can actually do,” Doyle told reporters of what he saw on July 14, 2000.
“It’s as though a steamroller had actually gone through it and flatted it out. You see trailers out there and motorhomes that have been basically picked dry of all the workings of the structure itself.”
Saturday marks the 18th anniversary of Alberta’s second-worst tornado disaster, a twister that appeared out of nowhere but left many who witnessed it that Friday afternoon still shaken to this day.
“This particular storm has been described as a thumbprint on the map — it just developed very
quickly from next to nothing,” Jim Squire, spokesman for Red Deer County’s emergency operations, said at the time.
Only Edmonton’s Black Friday tornado catastrophe 13 years prior eclipses the Pine Lake disaster in the province.
By the time that tornado had disappeared after ripping through the east of the city on July 31, 1987, some 27 people were dead, another 600 were injured and around 1,700 were forced to evacuate.
“I have never been so scared in all my life ... the ground shook, the cupboards rattled, and I knew we were in big trouble,” Green Acres campground holidaymaker Emily Smithers told reporters.
The last words after the catastrophic event should be reserved for holidayer-turned-rescuer Bob Bridgewater.
“After it hit it was absolute chaos, absolute chaos,” Bridgewater said in 2000.
“It came in like a tiger and left like a lamb. The sun came out straight after it hit and everyone and everything in its path was written off.”