Tornado gives 6 farms the blues
As Kitchener fest shuts, Hawkesville hit by mayhem
HAWKESVILLE — A blast of severe weather closed down the Kitchener Blues Festival and sent fans scrambling into city hall for cover. But in nearby Hawkesville a weather maelstrom took the stage.
A twister swept in on a 10-minute damage rampage.
Environment Canada meteorologist Brian Owsiak said his department confirmed that a tornado touched down around 7:30 p.m. Friday near Hawkesville and raced north for five or six kilometres, damaging six farms.
Hydro lines were downed, two sheds destroyed and other farm buildings damaged.
No one was hurt and the only confirmed livestock injuries were a few calves chained to the small white calf sheds commonly used on dairy farms.
“Some calves were tossed with the little huts,” Owsiak said.
One calf was badly hurt and Owsiak said he was told it would likely have to be put down.
The tornado was a category EF-2, a mid-level twister by Environment Canada standards, with winds up to 180 kilometres an hour.
“We think of anything over 90 kilometres an hour as damaging,” he said. “This is fairly typical.”
A second tornado had touched down in Leamington earlier in the day, from around 5:30 to 5:40 p.m., damaging a greenhouse and solar panels. No one was hurt.
Tornadoes are not uncommon in this region of Ontario, an area covering a wide swath from Lake Huron to Lake Simcoe.
These two latest twisters brought the 2017 total to nine tornadoes in southwestern Ontario. The annual average is 12, according to Environment Canada.
The Friday-night storms sparked a frightening series of thunderstorm alerts in Waterloo Region, Guelph and all of Wellington County, popping up on television screens, radios and cellphones, warning the public of possible tornado activity.
The unpredictable weather continued into the weekend.
“On Saturday the weather was still unsettled,” Owsiak said, sparking short bursts of heavy rainfall.
But the plucky folks at the Kitchener Blues Festival didn’t let the weather fireworks keep them from enjoying the music Saturday.
“It’s been excellent weather, other than Saturday, it’s been pretty good,” said festival president Rob Birkshire.
He said he was proud of all the volunteers, staff and festival partners who had a firm and wellthought-out emergency plan in place and carried it out efficiently during the worst of the storm on Friday.
“The emergency plan is very detailed,” he said, noting that the final call to close the festival came after a decision by the emergency committee.
“We held people in city hall and told them it was OK to leave after about one hour,” he said.
The bands that were supposed to be performing in the three outdoor venues didn’t miss out, however — they were soon moved indoors as part of the 12 Bars Blues feature of the festival.
“We just rescheduled the acts so they could get a spot,” he said.