'The whole house was shaking,' Huron County woman recalls close call with tornado

Parts of Huron County received a chilling reminder of nature's destructive power on Saturday evening after a possible tornado blew through part of the region between Bayfield and Goderich.

On Sunday, residents and visitors in the area who witnessed the storm told CBC News they were simultaneously shocked and amazed by the event. Deborah Caira had a front row seat to the chaos, but said the calm before the storm was one of the most surprising parts of her experience.

"We sat down to have dinner, and all of a sudden, my mom was like, 'You need to get to your safe place.' I said, 'It's all clear and sunny outside,'" Caira said. "Sure enough, I looked outside, and I saw this cloud formation rotating, coming toward us."

Multiple businesses and locals near the tornado's path reported a similar calm, with some not even knowing about the event until hours later.

Environment Canada said preliminary reports suggest the twister, which has not yet been assigned a severity rating, formed over Lake Huron before making landfall. An initial tornado warning was issued for the marine region shortly after 6 p.m., and the tornado made landfall closer to 7 p.m., a meteorologist said.

Barely more than half an hour later and 27 kilometres from the lake's shoreline, Caira was caught in what looked like it could be a fight for her life.

"We got inside, and probably two minutes later, it hit us, and I mean it hit us. The doors were shaking on their hinges. The whole house was shaking. It felt like it was over 100 kilometres an hour," Caira said, noting her home near Blyth, Ont., does not have a basement.

"We took cover in the centre hallway in the house, and within a minute it was over."

After the tornado passed, Caira said she watched it rip into a field behind her property before dissipating. The tornado caused serious damage to trees on the property, but left her house mostly unscathed.

"We were just blown away with the size of the [tree] limbs that were down throughout our backyard and behind our house. It looks like it cut right across the corner of our property, and tossed my vegetable stand, which is probably four or 500 pounds, into the driveway, face down," Caira said.

The vegetable stand, which she sells produce from, landed centimetres away from her vehicle. The tornado also destroyed a 150-year-old maple tree nearby, she said.

Nearby Goderich, as well as other parts of Huron County, were the site of an intense tornado in 2011 that killed one person, injured 37, and caused $130 million in damages. That, and other historic tornadoes in the region, mean Caira and her neighbours are aware of what can happen, and are thankful it wasn't worse, she said.

On its way to what could have been its final stopping point near Caira's property, the tornado hit a local campground, according to a representative from the business. The extent of the damage it caused is unclear.

Closer to the shoreline, Niagara region videographer Tom Elgersma was on his way to visit family members in Goderich when he saw what looked like a funnel cloud. He pulled over to film it, and captured what appears to be a tornado weakening, almost dissipating, and then roaring back to life.

"You're standing there, in awe, filming it, and you're also trying to keep in mind that it could change direction and start coming toward you," Elgersma said, calling the experience terrifying but fascinating all at once.

His video was among dozens of pieces of media posted to social media groups designed to document and warn of extreme weather events as they're happening. People in the region have come to depend on the groups for information, especially since official tornado warnings sometimes come after the tornado itself has dissipated.

"I think [these groups are] a good idea. They can give people updated situations and information from people who are on the ground," he said.

Currently, a team from Western University's Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) is investigating the tornado with the hope of documenting it, determining its path and giving it an EF rating, which is determined by how much damage it caused. It's not the only severe weather event in this corner of Ontario in the past few days.

The NTP recorded an EF-1 downburst in Mitchell, in the Municipality of West Perth, which happened on Thursday. The Mitchell downburst, the NTP's official notes say, damaged several barns, power poles, trees and crops. It had an estimated maximum wind speed of 150 km/h.