Red Deer cleaning up from wind storm after declaring state of emergency

People in Red Deer were cleaning up Wednesday after a violent windstorm that knocked out power and prompted the central Alberta city to declare a local state of emergency.

Homes where damaged Tuesday when wind gusts of more than 100 kilometres per hour hit the city of about 100,000 just after 7 p.m.

Mayor Tara Veer said trees fell on power lines and wind blew debris around.

One person suffered minor injuries at a campground but was released from hospital.

“We do know that it was a severe windstorm. We do know that there were exceedances of 112 km/h winds,” Veer said.

People posted images on social media of damage, including part of a roof that blew off a store and landed on nearby parked cars.

Windows were blown out of the local mall and one video showed scenes of people wandering around the darkened building wondering if they had been hit by a tornado.

Environment Canada said Red Deer was hit by one of a number of severe thunderstorms that rolled through the central part of the province Tuesday on the leading edge of a cold front.

Meteorologist Dan Kulak said it was not a tornado. He called it a “low-end severe thunderstorm” and added that such storms happen every year in the province.

“It was not a tornadic event. There is no evidence of tornadoes that we can find,” he said. “There were strong wind gusts across the province. It is not unusual.”

Kulak said thunderstorm watches were issued by Environment Canada just before noon that said conditions were favourable for the development of dangerous thunderstorms that could produce wind gusts, hail and heavy rain.

Environment Canada updated the watch to a thunderstorm warning for the Red Deer area about 7:09 p.m., he said.