Researchers and contractors were combing over the site of a tornado that tore through a south-end Ottawa neighbourhood Thursday to assess its aftermath and begin cleanup.
Connell Miller, a wind impacts researcher with Western University’s Northern Tornado Project, said a team of researchers was in the area investigating the scale of the twister.
Miller said Friday that included looking at the size of its path and the extent of the damage.
Meanwhile, contractors and their cars crowded Marek Way, one of the streets in the Barrhaven neighbourhood that was hardest hit.
Some stood on roofs throwing scattered shingles to the ground. Others threw large pieces of plywood in trailers. One lifted a ragged hockey net onto a bulldozer's front blade.
A few residents watched from their porches or driveways as debris from their torn-up homes was collected.
Basim and Aya Refat, along with their two children, were forced to vacate their house on the street due to extensive damage.
They said they are staying in hotel accommodations paid for by their landlord, and don't expect to be able to return home for a few months.
Aya Refat said she and her two young daughters huddled under a table and barricaded themselves in with a chair as the tornado swept through. She covered her daughters with a blanket to protect them from flying glass.
"I couldn't see anything," she recounted on Friday. "Everything was going away. The floor was moving. The window was broken."
"I was very scared," said Refat's five-year-old daughter, Farida.
"She was screaming," her mom echoed.
When the storm calmed, Refat said she rushed her children to a neighbour's house to seek shelter in the basement while their father drove home from Kemptville, a town 30 minutes south of Barrhaven.
Barrhaven West Coun. David Hill said the stress for residents in his ward has started to ease after Thursday's unanticipated drama.
"Day 1 was kind of shock and awe," said Hill. "Nobody was expecting a tornado."
Hill said Friday that things were already looking better.
"Everybody's had a chance to breathe, the chance to have a night's sleep," Hill said, standing near the storm's apparent epicentre at the corner of Marek Way and Umbra Place.
"And now it's dealing with the long-term consequences."
Hill estimated the number of families displaced is in the same "ballpark" as the 125 homes the City of Ottawa said had been damaged on Thursday.
He said the city is working to find contractors to repair damaged homes and help secure temporary accommodations in the meantime.
A community support centre had been set up at the nearby Minto Recreation Complex, where city staff, the Canadian Red Cross and the Salvation Army were on-site providing support and snacks. The centre was set to close at 7 p.m. ET Friday evening.
The city said it will begin curbside removal of tree and yard debris next week.
Aaron Jaffe, an engineering researcher who works with Miller at the Northern Tornado Project, said research is still in its early stages.
But Thursday's tornado appears to have had a path more than 100 metres wide and several kilometres long, he said.
Jaffe said researchers are in the process of evaluating the tornado through the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which is used to measure the severity of tornadoes in Canada and the U.S.
He said the early indications suggested Thursday's storm may have created an EF-1 or EF-2 tornado, which can produce winds between 138 and 217 km/h and cause moderate to strong damage.
Hydro Ottawa said pickets from a local electrical worker union, IBEW Local 636, were interfering with crews that were responding to the tornado.
"Repairs in Barrhaven and Parkwood Hills are still underway, however picketers are holding up crews and materials in various locations," it said on Twitter Friday.
The union denied the allegations.
"Since Hydro Ottawa blocked us and we can't reply to their post, residents should know our workers would never picket in Barrhaven to prevent restoration of power," IBEW Local 636 said on Twitter.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 14, 2023.
Liam Fox, The Canadian Press
