Storm leaves trail of damage, flooding across southern Alberta
CALGARY — A severe thunderstorm that brought golf-ball sized hail and flooded Calgary streets inflicted widespread damage to many areas of the city Saturday evening.
Social media posts showed shattered windshields, battered home siding and vehicles left abandoned on impassable streets.
“There has been catastrophic damage inflicted on houses and vehicles, and major flooding on many streets,” George Chahal, city councillor for Ward 5e tweeted, adding that there was a second storm heading to the area from the city’s south end.
Outside Calgary, tornado warnings were issued for several areas of southern Alberta, including Taber and Lethbridge, where residents were urged to seek shelter.
“This is a dangerous and potentially lifethreatening situation,” it stated.
An emergency alert was first issued around 7:30 p.m. when a tornado — moving at 60 km/h — was seen about 60 kilometres southeast of Lethbridge.
In Calgary, Enmax Power said it was working to restore power to thousands of homes affected by weather-related outages.
Localized flooding forced Calgary Transit to temporarily suspend CTrain service in parts of the northeast for a time.
Much of southern Alberta was under a severe weather watch from Environment Canada Saturday night, including three regions of the province that were placed under a tornado watch.
The watches were later downgraded to severe thunderstorm watches.