Tornado tears through Ottawa region
Injuries, major damage reported as thousands left without electricity
OTTAWA— A tornado ripped through the Ottawa area Friday afternoon, damaging homes and vehicles as severe thunderstorms and high wind gusts also pounded southern Ontario.
Extensive damage to houses was reported by residents in Ottawa and in nearby Dunrobin. In Gatineau, Que., cars were overturned on Hwy. 50, said Environment Canada, which confirmed a tornado had touched down in the region.
Ottawa paramedics said Friday night that four people had suffered traumatic injuries in the storm, two of whom were in serious condition. Several others were treated and released, they said.
Chris Angeconeb, his wife and their two sons went outside after getting a weather alert on their phones and saw a wall of rain and cloud coming toward their neighbourhood in Dunrobin.
Angeconeb, 52, said the clouds started to revolve in the sky and then it got eerily calm. One his sons, who is a volunteer firefighter, said it looked like a tornado was coming.
From the basement, where they took shelter under the stairs, they could hear objects hitting the house.
“You could hear things ripping. The wind was just amazingly strong,” said Angeconeb. “It was intimidating and scary.”
After a few minutes, the noise subsided and when they went upstairs, there was debris everywhere. “It was devastation,” he said. “The house across the road — their garage was gone. Our good neighbour’s house — their house looked completely destroyed. And his neighbour, two doors down, their house was gone. The top level was gone and it was just the basement left.
“The man who lives there was asking for help because his sister had been hurt.”
The family was going to spend the night with friends after firefighters asked them to leave the area over concerns about natural gas.
Fire trucks lined streets in Gatineau, where debris and downed trees covered roads.
The city issued a statement Friday announcing the opening of a mobile command post and an emergency measures centre.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged residents to “stay safe, follow the instructions of first responders and check in with people who might need extra help.”
The city of Ottawa said there were two areas of suspected tornado damage, Dunrobin and Nepean.
Greg Fergus, the Liberal MP for Hull-Aylmer, said the densely populated Mont-Bleu area suffered a “significant amount of damage.” The roofs were torn off a school and several apartment buildings, he said, estimating about 1,500 people had been displaced.
Nepean resident Glenn Johnson said he and his partner were in their kitchen just after 5:30 p.m. when the storm blew out their windows.
“We were trying to get down in the basement ... and glass started flying,” said Johnson. “My partner got her foot cut and I got hit with flying glass as we were trying to get the dogs and cat and everything down in the basement.”
He said the roof of his neighbour’s house was torn off and the second storey of another house was gone by the time the intense system passed.
Ottawa Hydro said there were more than 85,000 power outages in the city because of the storm.
The Greater Toronto Area saw thunderstorms and wind gusts of up to 80 kilometres per hour, also leaving thousands without power. Hydro Toronto said on Twitter that more than 5,000 customers were without power and restoration efforts were expected to last into Saturday.