Well, it seems the worst is over where I live. The storms are weakening into typical thunderstorms. But earlier this evening, there were reports of low end tornados. Kinda glad that it didn't pan out to see more powerful twisters than this but at the same time the anticipation of being able to spot "the big one" was somewhat deflating. Everyone had heightened awareness and most people took precautions and monitored the weather service. We had all kinds of storm chasers running around yesterday and today both Canadian and US based. The several weak tornados and 100kph winds caused plenty of damage though.
Weird cloud bottoms! Rotating cloud head. Powerlines were damaged last night in several areas including some main transmission lines. Some 50,000 people without power including Prince Albert a city of almost 40,000. The ETA for restoration of power is 2 days. Residents are told to conserve water usage because water pumps at the filtration plant and disribution are down. Only one gas station in the entire city has backup power so the lineup for gas was at least a kilometer long. A number of places including the hospital are running on natural gas powered generators. One of the buildings I manage has its own generator but it only powers about 30% of the buildings requirements. In times like this a simple battery backup would only last a couple of hours and a diesel genset would run out after the first day. Telephone service was down in some areas, partly due to power failures and partly due to damaged cell towers.
I work for the power company, so I have first hand knowledge of which lines went down. Several large steel structures on a main line and many more wood poles are broken on secondary lines. It may take 2 days to get power restored; the company has every available lineman doing OT. Saskatoon service centre is now our emergency incident command centre. The grid control centre is busy trying to balance the loads as lines are reconnected but this is leading to brown outs on the system. Surprisingly we didn't suffer major building damage but there was a lot of smashed trees and roof damage. I am holding my breath to find out what has to be repaired tomorrow. I am guessing that there will be a few assessments and repair jobs awaiting me to apply to the buildings I manage.
Sunday night, there were only a few thunderstorms. Monday's storms were in a line about 300kms NW from me and caused a fair bit of damage but today the storm front went right across the province and just missed most of my city. There were about 10 cells that began to weaken at supper time and what was left were thunderstorms with heavy rain, pea and golf ball sized hail and moderatly strong winds. One RV with the family inside were tossed off the road just north of the city. I have to check in with family, it looks like one of the storm cells went right over the family farm. Hopefully the hail missed them?!
Myself and the other building coordinators discussed a number of ideas regarding our own office building should the need had arisen. Staff would have been directed into windowless areas on the top floor and basement or where they could hunker down under furniture -- anyplace away from the perimeter windows! Nobody to use the elvators, use of the stairwells to be discouraged because they also have windows and nobody to exit the building because of the potential for flying debris. I had my at work BOB and vest ready in case I needed them. My vehicle was gassed up and my supplies checked.
Hopefully with all the attention the media gave to this, everyone else took the necessary precautions too and hoppefully no deaths or serious injuries. But we won't know for sure until the reports come out tomorrow.
Jokingly, we recalled the 100th aniversary of the Regina Cyclone coming up on Saturday. We even thought about telling
Kevin Costner and his band to stay away since he is playing on Saturday night! If you aren't aware, for some oddball coincidence, violent weather seems to follow Costner whenever he visits Canada. A few years ago, his band was prepping to take stage at a major western jamboree when a plough wind collapsed the stage and killed one person. The year previous he had also been twarted in appearing by a similar storm!
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