Effective security measures avoids the worst

An extremely rare meteorological phenomenon occurred in Bagotville on July 27th; large balls of hail more than six centimeters in diameter hit the area causing damage to buildings and vehicles. Warrant Officer Glen Slaunwhite was the technician on duty at the Bagotville weather service on this day that will go down in history. In the morning, he saw huge clouds forming. "I spoke with the people of Joint Meteorological Centre at least six hours before the events and we issued a notice that something was coming. At that time, we could not accurately predict the magnitude of the disturbance, Slauenwhite. "says WO The weather technicians continued to monitor a major depression and the clouds were growing rapidly. Two hours before the hail, the Joint Meteorological center issued a severe thunderstorm warning that may lead to lightning and hail. "We sent this warning to the Operations Center and to all units who work outdoors or who have sensitive equipment so that measures can be taken to shelter all that had to be sheltered. This is the usual procedure to avoid possible damage or risks to workers, " the warrant officer said. Obviously, even if we knew then that the storm would be violent, we could not have guessed the size of the hail balls that were then to fall into the corridor that was a few kilometers long and barely a kilometer wide; damaging all the vehicles and buildings in minutes. On a personal level, 744 motor vehicles were heavily damaged by the hail. Ninetysix DND cars also suffered damage. In the minutes that followed the storm, Good Samaritans were out to help. While some were helping to cover damaged windshields to prevent further damage, others looked after the vehicles left in the long term parking by those on a deployment.