27 Years Ago: Memories of the Barrie Tornado
Yesterday was the 27th anniversary of a Barrie weather disaster, an F4 category tornado that killed 8 persons, including a little boy a block from our old house on Briar Road in Allandale Heights. Some folks on my FB were talking about it, and I thought I'd share some memories I posted there.
That day I had been tutoring after school at Innisdale on the afternoon of May 31 1985 (I was 18 and was finishing grade 13), and kept on tutoring by moving over to a window when the power went off unexpectedly at 4 pm. I vaguely remembered hearing something like a train roar by during the next half hour or so, but it wasn't until I left the school, went outside and started walking home along Little Avenue on rain dampened streets when I realized something was *very* wrong.
There just wasn't tree branches with green leaves on the ground but other strange debris including roofing tiles, pink insulation, and bricks caked with cement. These were scattered on lawns, but across roads and sidewalks. Closer to home, turning off Little Avenue, things became worrisomely worse; telephone poles and trees were snapped off crudely like celery stalks, houses with shattered windows, many with the roofs ripped aslant showing bare cinder-block and drywall and the bright white of snapped off wood beams and two by fors.
We were lucky that our own home wasn't damaged too much (roofing tiles, shattered glass, and a bunch of strange debris sunken in our swimming pool, including a strange BBQ), and my sisters got out of their school before it collapsed. My dad said our Irish Setter started acting strange, whining and moaning, and headed into the basement just before the tornado roared by 100 meters from our house, and they all followed her down to ride out things as safe as possible.
Walking about with some of my friends through our neighborhood a little later that evening we saw that others were not so lucky, with many collapsed and damaged houses, torn up trees, and more. Right across the street from our house we saw several brick garages had collapsed, dragging down their roofs, and other houses nearby looked like something had *stepped* on them, having brick walls fold like sick origami, and splintering the interior exposed wooden frames into flinders. They looked like houses being build by toddlers, not like finished homes rendered unsafe and uninhabitable. We also saw some knocked down black power-lines near a ravine area that were oddly sparking and then spasmodically jerking when they sparked; we gave this a wide berth and saw some Ontario Hydro trucks slowly roll towards it. Others walking about told us about three other tornadoes touching down not far from Barrie, and that the race-track was badly damaged, along with houses on the hill near the Holiday Inn. We also heard that some persons had died when their homes had been knocked down...
While we were near Bayview and Springhome we suddenly noticed some Canadian military trucks and soldiers in green were redirecting persons and told them to go home, and they spray painted an 'X' in black and orange on each of our arms, and one of the reservists said that they had unconfirmed reports of looting. Since the skies were now a very odd bilious green colour (a sick hue others said the sky took on just before the tornado) we went along with their orders.
The next few days and weeks after the tornado were very chaotic. Classes were cancelled for several days, and some of our school-teachers who had chain-saws and pick-ups had myself and some of my friends and class-mates join them to cut up fallen trees on house properties in our neighborhood, and drag branches and other debris away. We had safety glasses and ear-protection and big grey cotton gloves to protect our hands as best as possible from broken glass, sap, and more. The buzzing sound of chainsaws and the chemical smell of gasoline and oil were very strong for the next few days. School exams were allowed to be deferred for some (I actually wrote mine). I lost my lined-up factory summer job at Jellco Packaging (the building had been flattened) and had to find another summer job.
All in all, it was a very odd time, simultaneously horrible and exciting. And it's still very vivid in my memory to this day (and from other FB posts) and memories of others there that day.
::B::
That day I had been tutoring after school at Innisdale on the afternoon of May 31 1985 (I was 18 and was finishing grade 13), and kept on tutoring by moving over to a window when the power went off unexpectedly at 4 pm. I vaguely remembered hearing something like a train roar by during the next half hour or so, but it wasn't until I left the school, went outside and started walking home along Little Avenue on rain dampened streets when I realized something was *very* wrong.
There just wasn't tree branches with green leaves on the ground but other strange debris including roofing tiles, pink insulation, and bricks caked with cement. These were scattered on lawns, but across roads and sidewalks. Closer to home, turning off Little Avenue, things became worrisomely worse; telephone poles and trees were snapped off crudely like celery stalks, houses with shattered windows, many with the roofs ripped aslant showing bare cinder-block and drywall and the bright white of snapped off wood beams and two by fors.
We were lucky that our own home wasn't damaged too much (roofing tiles, shattered glass, and a bunch of strange debris sunken in our swimming pool, including a strange BBQ), and my sisters got out of their school before it collapsed. My dad said our Irish Setter started acting strange, whining and moaning, and headed into the basement just before the tornado roared by 100 meters from our house, and they all followed her down to ride out things as safe as possible.
Walking about with some of my friends through our neighborhood a little later that evening we saw that others were not so lucky, with many collapsed and damaged houses, torn up trees, and more. Right across the street from our house we saw several brick garages had collapsed, dragging down their roofs, and other houses nearby looked like something had *stepped* on them, having brick walls fold like sick origami, and splintering the interior exposed wooden frames into flinders. They looked like houses being build by toddlers, not like finished homes rendered unsafe and uninhabitable. We also saw some knocked down black power-lines near a ravine area that were oddly sparking and then spasmodically jerking when they sparked; we gave this a wide berth and saw some Ontario Hydro trucks slowly roll towards it. Others walking about told us about three other tornadoes touching down not far from Barrie, and that the race-track was badly damaged, along with houses on the hill near the Holiday Inn. We also heard that some persons had died when their homes had been knocked down...
While we were near Bayview and Springhome we suddenly noticed some Canadian military trucks and soldiers in green were redirecting persons and told them to go home, and they spray painted an 'X' in black and orange on each of our arms, and one of the reservists said that they had unconfirmed reports of looting. Since the skies were now a very odd bilious green colour (a sick hue others said the sky took on just before the tornado) we went along with their orders.
The next few days and weeks after the tornado were very chaotic. Classes were cancelled for several days, and some of our school-teachers who had chain-saws and pick-ups had myself and some of my friends and class-mates join them to cut up fallen trees on house properties in our neighborhood, and drag branches and other debris away. We had safety glasses and ear-protection and big grey cotton gloves to protect our hands as best as possible from broken glass, sap, and more. The buzzing sound of chainsaws and the chemical smell of gasoline and oil were very strong for the next few days. School exams were allowed to be deferred for some (I actually wrote mine). I lost my lined-up factory summer job at Jellco Packaging (the building had been flattened) and had to find another summer job.
All in all, it was a very odd time, simultaneously horrible and exciting. And it's still very vivid in my memory to this day (and from other FB posts) and memories of others there that day.
::B::