Storm hits Owen Sound, downing trees, power lines

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Owen Sound residents described a wall of white as a violent storm blew through the city right at 7 p.m. on Thursday evening.

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When the weather cleared a few minutes later many of their streets were almost unrecognizable with downed trees and power lines. There were reports of damage to some homes from falling trees, but early on there were no reports of any major injuries as a result of the storm.

The worst damage in the city appeared to be in the northeast area. A large tree toppled over in Alexandra Park at the bottom of St. Mary’s hill, taking out power lines.

Fran Jones, who has lived in her home at the bottom of St. Mary’s Hill for the past 11 years, was outside reading when she started to get wet and decided to head inside.

She watched out her window as a large tree right across the street wave in the wind.

“It was top heavy and the wind was coming hard,” Jones said. “All of a sudden we heard it. It was a big boom and at first I thought it was somebody’s roof that came off. It was just unreal.”

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The Owen Sound Fire Department quickly responded to the scene to block off the small section of 16^th Street East that was left with two down poles and wires strewn about, before racing off to another call.

Jones said she wasn’t sure what had caused the damage. She said it could have been a tornado or a downburst, but it was impossible to see.

“I have never seen anything like it before,” she said. “It was a really, really bad storm.”

Residents along 8^th Avenue East south of Ecole St.-Dominique Savio were outside surveying the damage as several trees lay across the road and in yards. They said they still had power, but they were stopping motorists from heading down the street due to a downed live wire. A Hydro One crew responded and removed the wire. On its outage map, Hydro One was reporting several power outages across Grey-Bruce, including a large swath of the central Bruce Peninsula north of Wiarton.

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Rosanne Allan was around the corner from her 8^th Avenue East home at her daughter’s house when the storm hit. They went outside to put a few toys away because the wind was picking up.

They went back inside, and were looking out the back French doors of the home when all they saw was a wall of white.

“I said, ‘we are going to the basement,’ so we all ran down to the basement,” Allan said. “A saw the sun come out through a basement window and we could hear that the wind had died down, so we cautiously came up to make sure everything was good.”

She didn’t immediately see the damage on her own street, but her neighbour called to say a tree had come down on her garage.

“He was joking with me because I had actually had that happen before,” Allan said. “When he told me, I thought, ‘not again.’”

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A large tree did come down in her yard, but it missed her garage by inches this time. The top of an evergreen in her front yard layed beside the pick-up truck in the driveway. Other neighbours had trees down in their yards as well.

Along 16^th Avenue East near the former PPG plant, hydro poles were left leaning from the storm, while a mobile home at the trailer park on 9^th Avenue East was damaged after a tree fell across the front of its roof.

Nearby at Duncan McLellan Park, three large trees fell, taking out sections of the south diamond’s fence.

The Owen Sound Royals were waiting to hit the field for their Owen Sound Men’s Slo-Pitch League game when the storm blew in.

Teammates Baden Myles and Brad Downs were sitting in a pickup truck watching, as the rain started and the teams on the field at the time took shelter. The sun came out and the players started to head back to the diamond when the worst of the storm hit suddenly.

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“All of a sudden it was just, bam,” Myles said. “There was hail, we couldn’t see out the windows and there were leaves blown all over Brad’s truck.”

“It literally cleared up for a minute and then all of a sudden with no warning, boom,” Downs added. “This truck was moving. There were four of us in it.”

Downs took some video footage that showed the rain starting, then everything going white. Another video just minutes later showed the aftermath with the trees nearby lying on the fence of the outfield.

Myles said he had never seen anything like it before.

“There was rain, hail and so many leaves,” he said. “Everything was just hitting Brad’s truck.”

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