OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
@DriveHard posted a thread on one he experienced back in 2020:
We've now had one here in Ontario, and holy crap!
We got an emergency broadcast warning about taking shelter at like 11:00AM or something. Everything looked OK, was a bit overcast, so I didn't think much of it. Went off to pick-up some stuff and get some gas.
So, I was at Costco getting gas. My son was inside getting coffee filters and as I click-off $158 on the pump the power goes off on the pump. Weird. Then I hear this roaring wind and I look as this wall of wind and rain is bearing down on us at a breathtaking pace. I quickly hang-up the pump handle (I'm on the back pump) and hop in the Jeep to put the windows up. The guy in front of me is trying to fill his jerry cans and gets hit by the full brunt of it. WHAM!
He's scrambling to get his jerry cans in the back of the CR-V (his wife was driving) and then he gets on top of them and is holding onto the hatch so it doesn't blow off. Our vehicles are getting buffeted heavily and the wind is blowing the rain almost completely sideways. You can't see much more than a couple of feet. It was like a hurricane, but much shorter in duration. It kept up for about 10 minutes and then started to taper-off. He took that opportunity to shut the hatch and get back in the front of the vehicle. We then got another brief surge (not as bad as the first) and then it genuinely started to taper off and quickly dissipated.
I pulled out of the pumps and waited in the parking lot. A propane tank had been caught by the wind and took-out one of the "Tire Centre" spot markers. My son comes out to the vehicle and I tell him about it. He had missed the whole thing.
The damage was devastating. My other son, who was home, calls me, tells me we have no power and should be glad we weren't home as there are some huge branches in the driveway.
We leave Costco. There were at least 8 trees down on the road behind the store, a couple on houses, at least one on a car. Had to drive around downed lines. Getting home was an obstacle course with roads closed by trees and downed wires.
Surprisingly, my ash tree that always loses branches, fared better than my maple, likely due to the direction of the wind. I suspect the maple shielded the ash.
My internet line was almost on the road, so I pulled it up and wrapped it around my light pole to prevent it getting taken out by a truck. The red maple across the street was on the road. Several other trees were down in yards.
I borrowed a generator from my off grid buddy, and ran that for three days (Sunday/Monday/Tuesday). Had no internet service other than cellular. Rogers had good coverage the entire time. Bell and Telus were both hit and miss. My hot water tank (gas) didn't like the generator and wouldn't come on, even after I tried running it through a UPS.
Storm reports confirmed that wind speeds were around a category 1 hurricane. It also spawned a couple of tornadoes, one up near Ottawa.
Power finally came back on today at ~3:45AM.
Some footage from the Weather Network:
And some pics:
My Maple:
Red maple across the street:
Bell box about a block from me. That's fibre that's ripped out and wrapped around the tree:
Coaxial cable:
Derecho - never knew what it was, and now I've lived through it
I've lived in Iowa most all my life, and was even an amateur storm chaser in my younger years. NEVER have I EVER experienced anything like what we had on Monday. Just now getting power and internet back. It looks like a war-zone in most small towns here in central Iowa. I've seen reports of...
bobistheoilguy.com
We've now had one here in Ontario, and holy crap!
We got an emergency broadcast warning about taking shelter at like 11:00AM or something. Everything looked OK, was a bit overcast, so I didn't think much of it. Went off to pick-up some stuff and get some gas.
So, I was at Costco getting gas. My son was inside getting coffee filters and as I click-off $158 on the pump the power goes off on the pump. Weird. Then I hear this roaring wind and I look as this wall of wind and rain is bearing down on us at a breathtaking pace. I quickly hang-up the pump handle (I'm on the back pump) and hop in the Jeep to put the windows up. The guy in front of me is trying to fill his jerry cans and gets hit by the full brunt of it. WHAM!
He's scrambling to get his jerry cans in the back of the CR-V (his wife was driving) and then he gets on top of them and is holding onto the hatch so it doesn't blow off. Our vehicles are getting buffeted heavily and the wind is blowing the rain almost completely sideways. You can't see much more than a couple of feet. It was like a hurricane, but much shorter in duration. It kept up for about 10 minutes and then started to taper-off. He took that opportunity to shut the hatch and get back in the front of the vehicle. We then got another brief surge (not as bad as the first) and then it genuinely started to taper off and quickly dissipated.
I pulled out of the pumps and waited in the parking lot. A propane tank had been caught by the wind and took-out one of the "Tire Centre" spot markers. My son comes out to the vehicle and I tell him about it. He had missed the whole thing.
The damage was devastating. My other son, who was home, calls me, tells me we have no power and should be glad we weren't home as there are some huge branches in the driveway.
We leave Costco. There were at least 8 trees down on the road behind the store, a couple on houses, at least one on a car. Had to drive around downed lines. Getting home was an obstacle course with roads closed by trees and downed wires.
Surprisingly, my ash tree that always loses branches, fared better than my maple, likely due to the direction of the wind. I suspect the maple shielded the ash.
My internet line was almost on the road, so I pulled it up and wrapped it around my light pole to prevent it getting taken out by a truck. The red maple across the street was on the road. Several other trees were down in yards.
I borrowed a generator from my off grid buddy, and ran that for three days (Sunday/Monday/Tuesday). Had no internet service other than cellular. Rogers had good coverage the entire time. Bell and Telus were both hit and miss. My hot water tank (gas) didn't like the generator and wouldn't come on, even after I tried running it through a UPS.
Storm reports confirmed that wind speeds were around a category 1 hurricane. It also spawned a couple of tornadoes, one up near Ottawa.
Power finally came back on today at ~3:45AM.
Some footage from the Weather Network:
And some pics:
My Maple:
Red maple across the street:
Bell box about a block from me. That's fibre that's ripped out and wrapped around the tree:
Coaxial cable: