Tornado: Day of Darkness
The effect of the July 1987 tornado on friends and strangers is recalled.\r\nDate: July 31, 1987
Friday, July 31, 1987, started out as an ordinary day. The noon newscaster did mention “thunderstorm warnings”, but that was not surprising. The weather had been hot and humid for the past four days. We’d picnicked in the park, played bridge outside on the patio. Last evening we’d had heavy rain and wind with lightning flashing and thunder cracking. We’d probably get more today.
After lunch I drove the eight blocks from my home in east Edmonton to my hairdresser’s on 118 Avenue and 66 Street to get a perm. The weather forecaster was right – mid-afternoon brought a thunderstorm and heavy rain. I waited at the door of the beauty shop for a break in the shower. It came; I dashed across to the Safeway to buy some groceries.
As I pushed the cart down one aisle after another, I noticed the sky outside growing darker. The rain intensified. Then came hail. It roared on the roof with the fury of a hundred jack-hammers. Ice marbles danced diabolically in the parking lot as thunder crashed overhead. The sky grew even blacker. One clerk, peering out the bank of windows which faces the parking lot said, “I’ve seen a lot of storms from these windows, but never have I seen anything like this.” The lights went out.
Shoppers began to line up at the check-out counters. The clerks just stood there. Word sifted back, “The automatic tellers are out.”
“Can’t they add up the bills on papers as they used to?” someone asked.
But no. Business was at a stand-still. The storm roared on, unabated. Finally an auxiliary power plant kicked in and the checkout lines began to move.
One of the delivery boys came out dressed in rain jacket, a fireman-type hat, yellow rubberized pants and boots. He looked as if he were going on a trip under Niagara Falls. Customers laughed and joked now that the end of their wait was in sight. When it came my turn, the young man said, “If you’ll give me your keys and point out your car, I’ll drive it to the door and load your groceries. No sense in your getting soaked too.” He did that and I dashed the few steps from store door to car.
I headed east on 118 Avenue. I accelerated, the river of water rushing along the curb grabbed my wheels and the car swerved. Whoa, I thought! Slow down. This is really dangerous. I crept along in the right hand lane and safely made my turn to home on 58 Street.
It was now after 4:00 p.m. My daughter Sherri was waiting for me. She was on her way to her home in Castledowns from College in Mill Woods. “I can’t go home Mom,” she said. “The underpasses are full of water. The radio announcers are saying “stay put if you can. So you have a guest for supper,” she laughed.
I ran downstairs, dreading what I might find. Sure enough, water was pouring across the floor from under the spare room which was floored on 2 by 4’s above the cement. “You’ll earn your supper!” I yelled. “Come and help me.” My husband brought out his shop vac and the three of us began mopping and vac-ing like crazy.
The rain lessened somewhat and we were able to leave old rugs and sheets to soak up the water still seeping in. The back doorbell rang; it was Gordon, the young man from next door.
“Have you heard the news?” he asked. “They’re interrupting programs to say a tornado hit Sherwood Park. People have been killed.” A killer tornado in Edmonton? We looked at each other incredulously.
I had supper nearly prepared when the doorbell rang again, this time in front. A young lady stood there.
“Please, may I come in?” she asked. “I’ve been here before and I don’t know where else to go. I’m Debbie, Shelley’s friend.” Shelley was our grandson Rowland’s girlfriend.
We brought her in. Her face was white, her hair be-draggled. In a halting voice she told her story. “I was on my way home from work in south Edmonton. I always turn on 82 Avenue to go across the freeway to my home in Sherwood Park. The police were there turning everybody back. So I drove up to Baseline Road. They wouldn’t let anybody across their either. Could I try and phone my friend who lives near us? My parents are away and my little dog is in the house alone...if we still have a house..” She was near tears.
There was no answer to her phone call. We got her to drink a cup of tea, but she wouldn’t eat anything. In answer to our question about driving conditions, she said, “It was awful. A car right in front of me rolled…over and over…”
Our grandson and his buddy came in, full of news about the storm. Their Wildcat-Husky football game had even been cancelled! After a quick bit they offered to drive ahead of Debbie and help her find a way home. They told us later that they were allowed past the police on the Manning Freeway and by a circuitous route, made their way to Debbie’s. Her house was there; the tornado had torn its path between our place and hers.
Radio reports poured in. The tornado had hit the industrial section between Edmonton and Sherwood Park. In Evergreen Trailer Park, on Edmonton’s northeastern outskirts, peopled were maimed and killed.
Televisions in our area were dead; knocked out by the storm. I drove to my son Glen’s townhouse in Clairview where the TV’s were still working. Houses only a few blocks east of Glen’s had been hit. I watched the terrible scenes of devastation with him—huge buildings looking like kindling wood, debris strewn over acres, train cars derailed and thrown like toys, trucks and cars that had been rolled and tossed. It was unbelievable…but it happened. And the people! Early reports estimated a death toll of over 30, with 200 plus injured. Here—in Edmonton—where we don’t have natural disasters.
As I left my son’s, I was conscious of a sound that had been going, going, and was still going. Sirens. Ambulances carrying the injured travelled on the two main thoroughfares north and south of our house, 118th and 112th Avenues, until far into the night. I can here them still.
Epilogue: The actual death toll from the tornado was “downgraded” to 26. That night and the next day phone lines were jammed as anxious relatives sought news of loved ones. The August 1st Edmonton Journal was printed in Calgary, a special edition about the tornado, as the Journal’s machinery here was knocked out of commission. Rain and showers continued for another two days; the television showed pictures of homeless victims looking through ruins in the rain…
On August 4th, I drove across the Sherwood Park Freeway from east Edmonton to Highway 14X. Acres and acres of incredible devastation…And it happened here, in Edmonton.