On this day, July 31 in 1987

[Jared Mysko]

Here's a few good links to the "Edmonton Tornado" from 1987 when 27 people lost their lives in the second worse tornado disaster in Canadian history.

http://www.ee.ualberta.ca/~rob/tornado87.htm
http://datalib.library.ualberta.ca/tornado/
http://www.mb.ec.gc.ca/air/summersevere/ae...ae00s16.en.html

Easily the most photographed tornado in Canadian history.

Jared

 

[David Draun]

This is a common episode of Storm Stories on TWC. I've seen it 5 times. Nasty storm that was. F4, right?

 

[Dan Cook]

yea it was an F4.

 

[Graham Butler]

I know exactly where and what I was doing when this tornado hit Edmonton. I was sitting in my basement at the ripe old age of 4 eating multi-coloured marshmellows and listening to the reports on a plastic red transformer radio. This single event is what started my love for severe weather and scared the crap out of my family.

During one of the first touch downs it took off part of my couisns roof out in Beaumont and did damage to another house near by. My grandpa drove towards the tornado in Millwoods to get his dog (yea I know, why).

Very good friends of the family lived in a house way out on the edge of the river valley new the refinery. Their house was one of the only houses on the block that did not have to be torn down. They lost their roof, many upstairs belongings, and found something (I forget what) weird in their oven. They were out at their lake house during the event and rushed to town afterwards. My father spent the better part of the night helping them cover up the roof with plastic.

A few days after the tornado my grandfather took me out in his truck to show my mother and I the damge to the countryside. I vividly remember seeing a classic old red barn with no roof and then seeing the roof a good 1/2 mile down the road.

I have obtained a copy of the Environment Canada 30min video that contains most of the home video taken of the event. A nice edition to my video library!!

Graham Butler
wx5svr
Lubbock Tx

 

[Carrie Halliday]

I remember it well too. I was living in Sandpoint, Idaho at the time and just about freaked when I heard such a violent tornado was that close. We just didn't get that big of wind up in that area. Skeered me senseless, was still a weather weenie, but from FAR away at that time. :shock: