Extremely high winds caused serious damage south of Olds on Sunday afternoon, with gusts reported at over 106.19 km/h at the Didsbury weather station.
Carstairs fire department responded to 10 calls beginning at 10:18 a.m., including three motor vehicle rollovers on Highway 2, three grass fires and three calls involving downed power lines.
“The last call came in at 3:33 p.m. and we cleared the scene by 4:15,” said Lt. Darryl Nielsen, fire prevention officer with the Carstairs fire department. “Luckily, there were no reported injuries.”
Alison Caputo, who was driving southbound on Highway 2 during the windstorm, narrowly escaped two separate collisions as she drove behind two semi-trailers as they blew over due to the wind. One was just north of the Didsbury overpass while another was just after the turn-off for Carstairs, Crossfield and Cremona. The sign for the exit had blown over.
“We were commenting on the fact that … the trucks weren't pulling off (near the Carstairs turn-off). You could see the … trailer lifts .. up off (its wheels) and sort of comes to a resting stop. He keeps driving … and just at that moment the trailer comes up … and …it flips over on its side and skids sideways in front of us and we manouvre around it and continue going southbound,” she said.
“It was scary and you could feel the adrenaline,” said 13-year-old passenger Christian Caputo, who filmed the sign blowing over and the trailer skidding in front of them, on a camera phone.
Trying to navigate around a skidding tractor trailer was a harrowing experience, Alison Caputo said.
“It was really scary but when you're in that moment, you just do what you have to do,” she said.
Tom Schemionek, curator of the Bud Barn, located six kilometres east of Didsbury, has been cleaning up from the damage caused to a steel Quonset located next to the 92-year-old tourist attraction.
“The old building held up, but the Quonset next to it looks like a beached whale,” Schemionek said. “The wind was just unbelievable.”
He said the tarped Quonset was made of steel and had about 50 hoops as part of the structure. “The tarp let go on the west side and basically became a sail,” he added. “It tore off the back end of the building.”
Schemionek and his wife, Mary, watched the incident unfold. “It took about 30 minutes,” he said. “A horse and three llamas ran to safety, finding shelter at the other end of the field.”
The three-storey Quonset was built in 1998 and was used for storing building materials, a motorhome, bales and some family possessions. Schemionek said the building was not insured and there's no way to repair the damage, which he estimates is in the range of $30,000.
“It has to be demolished,” he said. “The steel structure is completely beat up. There's no money to rebuild.”
Debris is scattered over a quarter of an acre, he said. “I've been here for almost seven years and I've never seen anything like this.
“I don't even know where to start.”
At the peak of the windstorm, 20,000 FortisAlberta customers were without power throughout southern Alberta, including areas around Rocky Mountain House, Canmore, Morley and as far south as Pincher Creek.
“We had approximately 3,000 customers without power overnight,” said Jennifer MacGowan, director of corporate communications with FortisAlberta. “We had a lot of trees down on the power lines and poles down as a result.
“We have 250 employees who are working at restoring power to our rural customers, as there was extensive damage to the system.”
MacGowan is advising people to stay at least 10 metres away from a downed power line.
“Our first priority is the safety of our customers,” she said.
