Tornadoes can range in size from small, rope-like funnels to massive wedges, several kilometers in diameter. Most of them break tree branches and leave minor damage: although a few monstrous twisters can wipe out entire neighbourhoods.
That kind of destruction took place during the evening of June 22, 2007, when the most powerful tornado in Canadian history slammed into the town of Elie, Manitoba, 30 kilometers west of Winnipeg.
“It’s a memory that keeps haunting you every year,” said Lynn Kauppila, a survivor of the Elie tornado.
“It just never goes away.”
She’s been a resident of Elie for three decades with her husband, two daughters and two sons.
After getting home from work on that hot and humid Friday, Kauppila and her husband were having a few drinks on the back deck of their house while their kids were out with friends. She was ready to relax and settle down for the weekend.
But it wasn’t long before clouds moved in and huge raindrops started falling from the sky.
But unlike most summer storms, Kauppila felt there was something ominous about this one.
“We had a little dog, and he was going crazy. He was panting and going in and out of the house. We couldn’t figure out why he was doing that. All of a sudden, my daughter texted me and said there was a big funnel cloud.”
Kaupilla’s husband went to check it out and spotted, high above his treeline, a tornado just down the road. It was headed right for them.
Kauppila said the noise of the twister was deafening. “It sounded like a freight train…but 100 times louder.
“I remember the basement window blowing out and a bunch of cracking noise.”
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Kaupilla remembered hearing the hissing sound of natural gas and bolting across the basement. She doesn’t know how she got out, since the stairs leading out of the basement had been destroyed.
“I was going to get in my car but my garage was gone and my cars were gone.”
“I only had flip flops and I took them off because I thought I could run faster in my bare feet to get away from there. I don’t know where I was running from or who I was running from.”
Kaupilla said her husband yelled at her to put her flip flops back on due to all the glass that was scattered about.
“It looked like a war zone. It was so eerie.”
The twister was only on the ground for a half an hour, but caused nearly $40 million in damage.
Although it’s impossible to measure exactly, wind speeds inside the funnel likely surpassed 500 kilometers an hour.
Despite the destruction, no one was killed.
Though her house had been swept from its foundation, for Lynn, the true impact of the Elie tornado didn’t hit home until months later.
“We were frozen in time, if you want to call it that,” said Kauppila. “I still couldn’t believe it. We had to get a house built and everything replaced and make a list for an insurance company.”
“We didn’t have time to think about anything and we probably weren’t in the right frame of mind to do any of that but it had to be done, so we just kept going.”
Kauppila said it took several months before the situation finally hit home and she emotionally crashed.
“Year after year, summer is not a good time for us,” Kauppila said. “Especially knowing that we have family and grandchildren out camping. I’m petrified for them.”
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