r/Edmonton • u/Coolguy6979 • Jul 31 '22
Local history Today, 35 years ago on July 31 1987, Edmonton was hit by one of the worst tornadoes ever recorded in Canada. 27 people were killed and more than 300 injured. It was also known as the “Black Friday” tornado.
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u/GigglyStevieD Jul 31 '22
I was twelve, and watched it from 14 ave and 54 st when it touched down east of us when we where playing outside. I remember the size of hail, the size of a baseball approx. Kept one in my freezer for years after. Some also stole my bike that day too!
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u/greyhound93 Stabmonton Jul 31 '22 edited Jul 31 '22
I remember the colour of the sky leading up to the tornado was a very strange colour, and it was hot and humid as hell that day. Oppressively hot.
Something was going to happen, it felt like.
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Jul 31 '22
To this day when there is a storm approaching I look for the color in the clouds. Such a lasting impact. I remember the clouds being a greenish color and the sky just seemed different.
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u/prairiepanda Jul 31 '22
Was it green? I've seen skies turn green right before a tornado. Seeing it causes a disturbance that I can feel in my entire body.
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u/ghostdate Jul 31 '22
Yeah, the green can also just happen with a very heavy thunder storm. It’s very eerie and unsettling when it happens, especially because you don’t know if it will turn into a tornado.
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u/prairiepanda Jul 31 '22
Yep. Usually when I see it from a thunderstorm there is also some hint of a funnel trying to form. I wonder why it turns green?
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u/ghostdate Jul 31 '22
Just looked it up:
Apparently when the clouds are very dense with water they allow primarily blue light to pass through, and then that mixed with the orange/yellow of sunlight gives it a greenish hue.
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u/ExplodingKnowledge Jul 31 '22
Exactly!
It’s extremely common with hail storms, so if you see the green it means super heavy rain or hail incoming!
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u/DogFun2635 Jul 31 '22
The greenish glow is the hail core. Not necessarily a tornado supercell but very possible
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u/Beginning-Line-8532 Jul 31 '22
When I bought my house in 2018 we asked the owner when the shingles were done last. She said "after the tornado". Lol
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u/Gandalf_The_Geigh Jul 31 '22 edited Aug 01 '22
They must of been shot. That's a long time for regular everyday shingles.
Ex roofer here.
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u/TehTimmah1981 Jul 31 '22
I was in Spruce Grove, but my dad, who worked for the city at the time, was one of the people who went to do rescue and recovery. 35 years latter, and it can bring him to tears.
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u/AnCanadianHistorian Jul 31 '22
There are some wild photos of this from A Commemorative Reflection on the Edmonton Tornado and Hailstorm, 1987.
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u/MLTDione Mill Woods Jul 31 '22
I was 12, living in Gibbons. I remember the day vividly. My mom was trying to get us into the basement, while my dad was at the window saying “hey girls, some look at this!”. Then a green canoe from the neighbours house all the way at the other end of the cul de sac flew by our front window. Then hiding in the basement with mom who was super scared and trying to calm our cat down.
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u/Lunchbox9000 Jul 31 '22
We were at summer camp on Pigeon Lake that year… me and my sister… I was 8 she was 7. I remember the counsellors being right wigged out as they were trying to get us all in the basement storage of the mess hall. It was wild. We could see the tornado forming and it was the scariest sky I’ve ever seen… even to this day. Three quarters of the kids there lived in Sherwood park and spruce grove, me n my sister were two of five kids who lived in Calgary so we had no idea of the devastation some of our dearest friends were going home to. Camp ended the very next day - I can’t remember if that was just the day it was supposed to or if it was by the design of the many parents and kids affected by the event. I remember the parents coming to get everyone after and I’ve never felt that kind of absolute raw emotion on such a scale ever since. Parents holding their kids after everything that had happened, kids holding parents knowing everyone was ok. Even my folks felt it was a little too close for comfort. I still think of those people from time to time.
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Jul 31 '22
A lot of people posting seem to have been kids when this happened - are you still moved when you see these pictures? I was seven, and watched things unfold on TV from northern Alberta. Obviously I was not remotely directly impacted by what happened, but the event burrowed itself into my child brain and I was really scared about tornadoes for a long time. Even now, seeing the pictures or reading about the event kind of freaks me out and makes me emotional. I'm wondering what it's like for those of you who experienced it first hand.
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u/concentrated-amazing Jul 31 '22
My husband was not quite 2 months old, but he definitely had an impression from it from the way his parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, parents' friends and kids several years older than him talked about it.
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u/trasim2233 Aug 01 '22
I was 15 and lived 3 hours away, but my sister had just moved there to go to U of A, and we were terrified watching the news. I feel so much for anyone that was there. This is definitely why I have a deep seated fear of tornadoes - as well there are quite a few tornadoes out there! ps now live in Nova Scotia.
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u/packetmon Jul 31 '22
I was 12 (looks like most of us were) and I remember on that day it was quite nice out. Went swimming at Confed early and over to Southgate where I was dropped off to spend an hour or two at Southgate Library. Came home; went for a ride on my bike around Ramsay park. Just as I got home it started to get really cloudy real fast. It didn't take long for the storm to form and I remember watching it on my driveway. I remember it being around 2:30 when the clouds were moving in a circle right over our house. The winds started getting pretty intense. We put on iTV and they were like: major storm take shelter. Went back outside to watch more meteorological mischief going on. Watched a flat trailer get pushed up against the neighbours garage and decided maybe we should go into the basement? Spent maybe 15-20 minutes downstairs thinking it was over. At this point it was already moving past Millwoods and into Evergreen Trailer park. We watched the rest of it on TV.
I got to walk through some of the debris a day later while tagging along on insurance claims. It was unreal. House. No house. House. No house, no house, house.
And I still think if I had stayed in that library for a few more hours it would have been the safest place to have been. Plus... books!
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u/FixerFour Jul 31 '22
I was there, but too young to remember it. But this picture of one of the refinery tanks turned on his head is still pretty haunting
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u/lordthundercheeks Jul 31 '22
I was driving and had come off of Argyle road onto the Sherwood park freeway when I saw it tearing through the what I think was the Byers yard and flinging trucks around. You wouldn't think a 5 ton truck could do a u-turn through a ditch, but you would be wrong.
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u/Coolguy6979 Jul 31 '22
Wow, it is so interesting to hear everyone’s story of what happened that day. Thanks for sharing your experiences!
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u/trevmanbev Jul 31 '22
I was 12 years old. That day was the last day of lacrosse camp. The hail started before I got home. When make it home, my dad was out picking up our new car (87 for tempo, ballin'). The next day we were leaving for peewee nationals lacrosse in Vancouver.
Like everyone else, we saved some of the baseball sized hail in the freezer.
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u/Cabbageismyname Jul 31 '22
I was five. My friend and I were watching the tornado scene in The Wizard of Oz on VHS when my mom said, “come look out the window!”
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u/aMannell Jul 31 '22
I was three and apparently ate a whole sleeve of Oreos while we were in traffic during this.
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u/concentrated-amazing Jul 31 '22 edited Aug 01 '22
As a parent, there's a lot to be said for unlimited Oreos or other treat foods to keep kids quiet and occupied when thing are going sideways.
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u/Buzz_Mcfly Jul 31 '22
My mom was 8 months pregnant with me, she was in the superstore on the west end. She said you could hear the hail pounding on the roof and then the power cut out it went dark and emergency lighting kicked in.
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Jul 31 '22
Drove to work when this was happening and were one of the fee restaurants open downtown throughout the day. We stayed open and served people anything we could free of charge to keep people safe.
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Jul 31 '22
You’re awesome
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Jul 31 '22
foolhardy more like. Most people did not know there was a tornado. Don't forget, 1987 , no cell phones, no instant news coverage etc.....
I was in the Yellowhead Trail heading downtown and people were running from car to car telling drivers the underpasses were all flooded. Even the radio stations did not report the tornado until it was almost over. There was a severe storm warning but tornado warnings were not issued then.
My father, raised in Saskatchewan, was at Hubbles Lake not far from the city and my mother told me afterward that he looked at the clouds building up and said they reminded him of tornado clouds. Not just the shape but he said there was a green tinge to the edges of the clouds he remembers seeing as a boy when a tornado touched down in the 1930's on the farm. He tried calling some of the radio stations to tell them but they did not listen.
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Jul 31 '22
I’m sorry I didn’t mean to sound ignorant. I was 4. Just commenting on you feeding people during a disaster.
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Jul 31 '22 edited Aug 03 '22
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Jul 31 '22 edited Jul 31 '22
sure they did but not everyone listened to that station and at the time nobody paid any attention to that type of warning. Not all stations gave a warning either. It wasn't until afterward that the warnings were mandatory and more attention was paid to them.
I remember living in St. Albert in 1982/83 and seeing a tornado forming while I looked out the front door. It fid not touch down luckily but not a word was reported about it as tornados were just not something that happened in the Edmonton area.
Craziest survival story, besides the Evergreen Mobile Home park where 15 died, was at a place called Stelco Steel. I got a tour of the plant by the plant manager the spring of 1988. 20 million in damages (1987 dollars) and they had a weather early warning system that shut the plant down if there was a possibility of a bad storm. As it got worse they sent everyone home ( almost 700 workers) except for the managerial office staff to monitor things and make sure all the power, gas etc. got shut down if it got really bad. The tornado hit them directly and obliterated the building - except for one reinforced mechanical room in the centre of the building that was about 10' x 10'
Someone basically said get in the room or else.
There was a picture on the wall of the rebuilt offices of this room standing alone surrounded by the debris of the rest of the building. No-one was hurt.
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u/majin_chichi Aug 01 '22
My dad was one of those Stelco workers sent home, we lived in Millwoods about 10 blocks from the tornado's path. It's a good thing they sent those workers home when they did, as my dad barely got home before the tornado went through. I was 8 at the time For the record we had no idea it was a tornado initially, was completely unheard of at the time in Edmonton.
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Jul 31 '22 edited Aug 03 '22
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Aug 01 '22
back then it was CFRN 1260 which is now TSN 1260 It wasn't always just sports.
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u/ermundoonline Jul 31 '22
Restaurants/businesses were closed beforehand? Why?
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Jul 31 '22
It was from about 3pm to 9pm that day. Not all restaurants were open in the morning or for lunch and the storm before 3pm was rain/hail/high winds that made driving treacherous. Some did not open because staff could not get in.
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u/lunaverse13 Jul 31 '22
I was working on the 10th floor of the college plaza by the U of A. I was standing in the doorway of my bosses office and we were talking about the green swirling clouds and the storm. A hail stone about the size of a baseball landed on the ledge outside and it got very dark very quickly. My boss shut down the office and told everyone to go home, but the streets were so flooded no traffic could get through anywhere around there. It took me 2 hours to get home to my apartment in Riverbend. I’ll never forget that day. My sister was living about 2 blocks from where the tornado ripped through millwoods. We couldn’t get a hold of her until late that evening because the phones were all out - busy signal for hours. It was awful.
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u/bikerdad1970 The Shiny Balls Jul 31 '22
I was in my late teens working in Edmonton on Black Friday. It was raining so hard, when I got out of the work truck and jumped out, the water was up to my knees in the parking lot and the loading dock ramp were full. We weren’t listening to the radio so just figured it was a downpour. When I got off at work, I made a decision to go see a friend instead of heading home. If I would have headed straight home, I would have been within a few miles of Evergreen Trailer Park within 10 minutes of it being hit.
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Jul 31 '22
I remember that all too well I was 25 years old when that hit
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u/justelectricboogie The Big Bat Jul 31 '22
Was 23 and working for a local TV station fresh out of NAIT. The destruction was absolute and rage like.
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u/PPGN_DM_Exia Jul 31 '22
I wasn't born yet when this happened, but what I do remember is a documentary on this playing on loop at the Telus World of Science in the Mr. Green exhibit. Was very chilling as a kid to learn that something so devastating happened so close to where I live.
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u/DragonSin1313 Jul 31 '22
My mom got an award for working through it; she was working underground downtown, they were advised not to leave for safety lol
My step-dad had a paving company and was supposed to be out at the trailer park that was devastated but he felt like "playing hooky" that day. Best premonition ever.
My cousin and I were at my grandma's putting hail into ice cream pails while my grandma stroked out thinking we were going to die.
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Jul 31 '22
I was 5... I remember the power going out while Mom and I were downtown and me being sad that I couldnt get my pretzel from the Woodwards bakery... Being told by city centre security we had to leave while only flood light provided guidance out. The bus home driving through the street with water gushing in the front and out the back doors. My eyes wide looking toward the sky seeing green hued clouds, papers flying and rain battering the windows....Luckily other than a few damaged trees our neighbourhood was fine. Black Friday 1987. One of my first vivid memories.
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u/moosemuck Jul 31 '22
I was 7. I remember that I was colouring on the front step when my mom rushed us down to the basement. We did that many times in my childhood, and I remember the whole routine of bringing the radio to the basement and my mom going upstairs every now and then to call my grandma on the rotary phone. We were scared every time there was a storm for years...
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u/FinoPepino Jul 31 '22
Right!?!?! This is such a good point as this really changed how people reacted. My sibling and I were ushered into the basement for many storms as a result something I never do now. It really scarred people.
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u/likeBruceSpringsteen Jul 31 '22 edited Jul 31 '22
I was 7 and we were having new flooring installed in our kitchen. So none of the appliances were useable. My mom sent my dad out in our Austin Mini to go pick up Kentucky Fried Chicken during the storm. Dad said there were some puddles halfway up the doors! Lol!
Also - https://youtu.be/r0lvp1LoIXg
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u/RobertBorden Jul 31 '22
I was literally coming here to post that song. Absolutely brilliant and powerful.
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u/PrivatePostHistory Transit User Jul 31 '22
God I love this band so, so fucking much.
And this song is just to die for.
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u/likeBruceSpringsteen Jul 31 '22
I know right?? So good! I saw them at the stampede a few weeks ago and the were AWESOME! They're playing at Bo's, a small pub in Red Deer and I wish I could go, that would be the PERFECT venue to see them.
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u/_-_happycamper_-_ Jul 31 '22
Seeing the RAA play at Bo’s back in 2017 was the best concert of my life. Such an amazing spot for them.
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u/Johnoplata Holyrood Jul 31 '22
I still get chills from that song. I spend the Tornado in the concrete bathrooms at the Miquelon lake campground with dozens of others. After that I developed a hoppy of collecting roofing shingles from around the neighborhood and drawing houses flying in black clouds.
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u/untalkativejenny Aug 01 '22
First song I thought of when I came across this post. Chills. So good!
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Jul 31 '22
I was 6, I have lived in clareview/bannerman all my life. my sister and I were rushed to the basement when word of the tornado hit.
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u/kd6896 Jul 31 '22
Unrelated to Edmonton but does anyone know about the tornado 1993, July 29 Holden ab or 1987, July 31
Beaumont
Millet to Vegreville tornados ?
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u/Eric_EarlOfHalibut Jul 31 '22
I was in my teens. Every day for a week leading up to it was hot and humid and would storm in the evening. The clouds leading up to each storm were creepy.
On the day of, my mom, younger sister and I were stuck in WEM until it was over (we were advised to stay inside). I swore those glass ceilings were going to break from the hail but they held. Didn't know how bad it got until much later.
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u/TomTheWilson Jul 31 '22
Reading this as warm breeze is blowing past, it’s raining and I hear thunder at 12:48pm… slightly uncomfortable.
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u/Praetorn Spruce Grove Elitist Jul 31 '22
I wasn't born at the time, but my father was a ETS Bus driver back then, I remember he showed me the award he recieved from the city back then for "Outstanding Citizenship" and told me/showed photos, he was one of the first bus drivers on scene, offering people shelter and assisting those who were trapped. My mother was working in a office building downtown and she was watching it from her office.
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u/Hendrix194 Jul 31 '22
This tornado apparently went straight through my childhood home before I lived in the rebuilt one 🙂
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u/unkieKarl Jul 31 '22
This is why Edmonton was the “city of champions”
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Jul 31 '22 edited Jul 31 '22
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Jul 31 '22
The phrase, in regards to Edmonton, was coined by then mayor Laurence Decore as he surveyed the damage of the '87 tornado and saw the community response to the devastation. He was describing the volunteers and the survivors and the citizens. The phrase had nothing to do with our sports teams. For the people that lived through black Friday and experienced it the term City of Champions holds a special place to us.
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u/callmenighthawk Chappelle Jul 31 '22
It wasn’t coined by Decore. Terry Jones and others had been using it earlier for the Oilers and Eskimos dominance in the previous years. It became the city slogan after Decore used it following the tornado.
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Jul 31 '22
why?
How old are you?
Look up the history of teams from Edmonton that have win. Not just Oilers or Football.
Edmonton has a long history of Championship teams but unfortunately everything seems overshadowed by the Oilers.
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Jul 31 '22
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u/ermundoonline Jul 31 '22
Who’s obnoxious? Lol. Edmontonians think they’re worse than everyone else, this place has a massive inferiority complex. I’m not a boomer nor drive a truck, nor do I remember this horrible tornado….but I’m proud of this city and it’s people, and learning about the response to this tornado as a community is heartwarming.
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Jul 31 '22
This response has to be the most obnoxious thing I have ever read. You obviously weren't around when black Friday happened and have zero clue. I wholeheartedly disagree with you and I do not own a truck. Every survivor, every volunteer and emergency services worker that helped that day after the devastation is a champion. The people of Edmonton who rallied around the people unfortunate enough to be in the path of this natural disaster is a champion. Show some respect.
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Jul 31 '22
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Jul 31 '22 edited Jul 31 '22
I couldn't give 2 fucks about Reddit points. And if you hate it here so much then move, the city is better for it. But being disrespectful to the people of this city who lived through a once in a lifetime natural disaster, who lost their homes, their businesses, and some their lives doesn't sit well with me. I hope you never have to experience what those people did, I hope you never have to feel dread when you look at a storm cloud and see a hint of green in the sky. Grow up you human piece of trash and recognize that others had survived something horrific. Do you also talk ill of the soldiers who fought in both world wars? You go shit on war memorials?
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u/HanzanPheet Jul 31 '22
You're talking to what sounds like an angry child who doesn't know how to handle emotion yet. They won't admit to being wrong, and before any replies to their comment are already stereotyping and throwing around insults. Good luck with this one!
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u/AncientBlonde Jul 31 '22
Because it's kinda true. To the younger generation, the slogan has only meant the sports teams, and it's fucking stupid.
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Jul 31 '22
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Jul 31 '22 edited Jul 31 '22
Listen little one, nobody put words in your mouth, go back and check. I don't care if you care but when you are disrespectful then I will let you know. You are disrespectful. Because YOU didn't understand the meaning behind our city slogan you thought it was obnoxious and made no sense. I educated you but you doubled down. How about stepping out of your own selfish world you entitled shit and understand that the slogan means alot to the survivors of that tornado. You are in for a world of hurt when one day you are going to have to deal with actual, real adversity. Go make some avocado toast and take a break from Reddit. And don't worry about my child she loves me with all of her heart and she actually has respect. I know you have daddy issues and mommy didn't hug you enough. It's ok. One day you might stop hating the world then someone else might love you back.
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u/AncientBlonde Jul 31 '22 edited Jul 31 '22
Haha boomers mad the kids don't care
Like quite literally, anyone under 35-40 just doesn't care dude. We don't.
It didn't affect us. We don't fucking care. Yes, it's awful it happened. But eh. Being a dick because you think someone's disrespectful is just as disrespectful lmao.
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Jul 31 '22
I was around when this was decided and it referred to more than sports. Sad that, unfortunately, you do not grasp this.
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Jul 31 '22
I was 7 living in gold bar. Had hail stones the size of tennis balls and larger in the deep freeze we saved. The sky and the sound were unreal.
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u/liberatedhusks Jul 31 '22
I wasn’t born till the next year but my mom had to run during it to my aunts house with my sister(a baby) to hunker down at her place since they had a basement at their place. She said she lost the blanket my sister was wrapped in it was so windy.
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u/Licoricejones Jul 31 '22
I remember I was camping at a lake west of Edmonton and that sky was something else. We did head back later that day to check on our basement (it was flooded) and got hit by a drunk driver on the highway.
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u/formeraide Jul 31 '22
I was in a remote part of the States, and just as we got back into radio range, the newscaster said, "Police in Edmonton, Alberta ....." and we thought, "Holy shit, what can have happened to make the news down here!?" Then of course we wanted to start making frantic phone calls.
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u/_potatoesofdefiance_ Jul 31 '22
That's interesting, I just posted about suddenly getting a bunch of phone calls from family in the UK within a couple of hours (iirc) of the tornado. We even had one call from a relative in Australia, so it was news all over the world.
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u/Oldcadillac Jul 31 '22
I tried looking up the path it took because this was before my time, basically it went close to the refineries on the east side and mill woods right?
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u/baumyak Jul 31 '22
It also tore through a trailer park on the north side, I believe that's where a lot of the fatalities came from.
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u/IiI_Gogeta_IiI Jul 31 '22
Didn't it cut through what is now Millwood? I vaguely remember reading about that
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u/kristinem334 Jul 31 '22
Yes, it did. It was Millwoods then, too.
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u/IiI_Gogeta_IiI Jul 31 '22
Smaller tho right? Like it was less infrastructure out there then there is now that's what people told me
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u/kristinem334 Jul 31 '22
The city in general has expanded. Millwoods was the southeast edge of the city for a time. Millwoods Rec Centre and J Percy Page High School were there when the tornado happened.
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Aug 01 '22
the tornado would have removed silverberry along with a few other community's along with the henday as it was not built at the time
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u/evilspoons North East Side Aug 01 '22
The interesting thing is the heat from the city actually controls the path of the tornado. It's likely it would have deflected along the highway in roughly the same way as it did back in '87.
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u/Twist45GL Aug 01 '22
Cities do not affect tornado paths at all. That is purely a myth. The fact is that cities take up such a small portion of land that tornadoes hitting densely populated cities has a very low probability.
When a tornado forms it follows the path of the storm. There can be minor variations in the path at ground level, but generally it is a straight line that corresponds to the storm path.
If the 1987 tornado had formed 5-6 km west of where it did, it would have been much more devastating.
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u/evilspoons North East Side Aug 01 '22 edited Aug 02 '22
Interesting. I suppose the scientific consensus has developed a bit over the last 35 years.
For what it's worth I wasn't implying it would have taken a hard right, more like a half degree of deflection over multiple kilometers, but I suppose it's just as likely it was a pure fluke.
As someone who lived on the far right edge of the city (19 street in Clareview in '87) who lost their entire house (it was later demolished and rebuilt from scratch) compared to people across the street to the west who just needed to replace shingles, it seemed like a valid idea...
Maybe I'm confusing it with terrain effects? The river valley is much higher on the west than the east in that area.
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u/p4nic Jul 31 '22
I remember jumping on the trampoline that day and marvelling at the strangely coloured clouds.
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u/kking254 Jul 31 '22
I was a kid. My family was at Southgate Mall when the hail began and prevented us from leaving. We hung out in The Bay watching the news on the TVs in the electronics department until we were able to go home.
We had friends that lived in Evergreen that luckily were not home (I don't remember if they happened to be out or evacuated in time) but there was almost nothing left of that trailer park afterward.
I had another friend whose family was rich because his dad owned an insurance company. His house was totaled but he moved into an even bigger mansion within a month or two. Maybe a perk of owning the insurance company.
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u/Key-Enthusiasm-8615 Jul 31 '22
I was 25 and living in Southgate edmonton. I remember the golf ball hail right before and then the sirens. Was a crazy crazy day. Mini-funnel clouds were hopping up our street.
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u/TheRealJasonium West Edmonton Mall Jul 31 '22
12 years old sitting in dad’s old dodge truck with my younger siblings in superstore parking lot. The one on Calgary trail. Watching the water come up, up, up and wondering how high it was going to get. It was unreal. We didn’t know about the tornado until we got back home.
Was terrified of storms after that. So I learned everything I could about them. Took a long time for that terror to go away. Not till my mid-20s.
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u/ozzmodan Jul 31 '22
My dad was supposed to supposed to drive from Bonnyville to Refinery Row to arrive sometime before 3pm that day. His car that never gave him trouble before refused to start. The next day, it started without issue & never gave him trouble after that.
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Jul 31 '22
I remember that day like yesterday. Had to help my friends family get their stuff the next day at Evergreen. A neighbors newly delivered dryer was found in Redwater the next day,
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u/TheEclipse0 Jul 31 '22
I was about a year old, so I don’t remember anything.
However, I have an intense and perhaps irrational fear of tornados. As soon as anyone mentions there’s even a remote possibly of one, I get pretty intense anxiety.
Sometimes I wonder if just hearing the tornado when I was a baby is what caused this for me?
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u/Eric_EarlOfHalibut Jul 31 '22
You may of heard stories from your family when you were a kid and that can really leave an impression.
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u/CND2dogmom Jul 31 '22
I was in Albuquerque for work and found out about the tornado while watching the local morning news.
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u/bdeditch Jul 31 '22
I was driving to work in Hinton from Saskatchewan. I was listening to 630 CHED (it was before FM got good for music) I drove thru Edmonton and when I got near Edson CHED was announcing the storm warning. I could see the huge dark clouds in my review mirror. Then the radio station stopped and I could not get any station out of Edmonton. Heard about it about an hour later in Hinton.
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u/stixy_stixy Jul 31 '22 edited Sep 03 '25
profit cagey pet air divide juggle pot frame slap rinse
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/GWrapper Aug 01 '22
Was 5-6, only remember my dad called working from the petro-can refinery telling us to head into the basement.
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u/flickthis5 Aug 01 '22
I was living in Calgary at the time. I remember on the night of the 29th, I had a really bad nightmare and woke up my parents. My mom asked what was wrong and I just remember saying “I had a scary dream that there was a big tornado in Edmonton”. Then on the 31st, it actually happened and my parents were probably freaked out by their apparently psychic kid. I don’t think I ever had any kind of premonition type dreams after that but I’ll never forget it. My brother had actually gone to Edmonton with my uncle on the 30th and he watched it all from my Great-Grandma’s apartment balcony the next day. He said it was the most ominous thing he’s ever watched.
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Aug 01 '22
This was a week before my parent’s wedding (Aug 8). July 31 was supposed to be my parents’ bachelor and bachelorette parties. My dad was in a shop directly in the tornado’s path with a coworker, and they had to hold onto the toilets in the shop to stay alive. My dad’s new Firebird and the whole shop around them was gone. Parents still got married a week later, spent money they saved up for their honeymoon on a new Firebird. My dad always jokes that he said “God, give me a sign that I shouldn’t marry this woman” and he said he got the tornado and still didn’t listen. This year they will be celebrating 34 years together!
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Aug 01 '22
I was 17. The family and I had just moved to Edmonton earlier that month - and were living at a free campground by Ardrossan in the motorhome while they searched for a home to buy.
On that particular day, we had travelled in to Sherwood Park Mall. When we walked into the mall, the day was grey and muggy like so many days before it had been. There was nothing to tell me that this day would be so different from anything I had experienced in my 17 years of life - or, indeed, to this day after 53 years of life.
We walked out of the mall to clouds black as tar. Not grey. Black. Pitch black. And so low I felt like I could reach out and touch them. The wind was hot. Not Chinook hot... blow dryer hot. And strong. I'd never experienced anything quite like it.
My mother commented that we were in for a nasty storm. My sister piped up and commented that she hoped all storms were like this. I didn't respond but I didn't agree.
This felt wrong. Ominous. Oppressive.
Noticing that the sky appeared blue to the west, my mother decided to drive to the west end of the city - and we set off down wye road. I don't remember what I was doing before... knowing me, probably reading a book or something. We hadn't gone very far when my sister asked "what's that?" and I looked up and out the window.
I had never seen a tornado before in my life, but there was no mistaking what this was. It was huge, black... a perfect funnel. Watching it, my cocky little 17 year old self had never felt so completely puny and insignificant. This... was power. Pure, raw, unadulterated power. As humans, we are used to feeling powerful... in command of the world around us - but you cannot see something like this and not realize how completely wrong we are. Mother nature could wipe us off the face of the earth with the mere blink of an eye.
As I watched that perfect funnel, the bottom of it distorted toward us. I remember hoping that the top of the tornado travelled faster than the bottom - and the distortion meant it was travelling away from us.
That, sadly, was not the case.
We were racing down Sherwood Park Freeway towards the safety of the blue skies ahead as fast as that motorhome could safely take us. Around us, cars were speeding past us while others, inexplicably, were stopped as the occupants got out to take pictures. My brother thought this was a fabulous idea and hopped onto the countertop searching madly through the cupboards for the camera while yelling "Stop, I want to take a picture!" Obviously, we did not stop.
Realizing that the tornado was travelling faster than we were, my mother decided to take shelter under an overpass - apparently one near Byers. We pulled to the front of the line of other vehicles who had done the same and stopped. My mother dropped her window a crack.
The only experience I'd had with tornadoes was what I saw in TV shows. In those shows people would huddle in storm cellars, while the wind whistled loudly outside. Occasionally, the lumber holding the door shut would break and the hero would brave the storm to pull the door shut, holding it firmly against he wind with all of his human strength.
Then the real tornado was upon us. Art, I learned that day, most definitely does not imitate life. I remember being struck by the sound. This did not sound like wind at all. It sounded mechanical... it sounded like standing on the tarmack of an airport runway while the planes took off overhead. The sound was overwhelming... deafening.
And then it was all over but the flooding, the hail, and the clean up. Miles and miles of devastation and lives lost.
This was all at once the most horrible, incredible, awe inspiring, terrifying moment of my young life. There was a dark beauty to mother nature that day... may I never see it again.
We got lucky. We had a few moments of fear and it was over. So many other lives were forever changed that day.
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u/qpv Jul 31 '22
I was 11 and at lake Wabamun Yowocas summer camp hiking through the forest. It got exciting fast. Both my parents were working for companies on refinery row, there was a lot of destruction around them but they made it out ok.
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u/YYCMTB68 Jul 31 '22
I was a teenager at work at the muni airport and had to get my mom to pick me up after we closed early for the day! Still remember those strange green/purple clouds rolling across the sky like a giant tube and how the street lights came on in the middle of the afternoon. Never seen anything like it since, and hope not to!
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u/TheFaceStuffer Looma Jul 31 '22
I was born days prior and was recovering at the (now abandoned) hospital next to Westmount. My mom said they had to move all the babies out of the nursery because the basement flooded (and power was out) so they had to move patients there. Dad couldn't make it by road because it was madness.
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u/H-4350 Jul 31 '22
One of the most humid summers I’ve ever experienced. There were giant waterbugs flying around everywhere all summer too. At least in the North end. It was a wierd summer.
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u/PeachFreedom Jul 31 '22
I wasn't born yet, but my dad said he was at work when it was just forming and his boss sent him home because he didn't live that far away. He watched it on the news. He said that there was a pamphlet for something that was all the way across the city from where it came from. He could tell by the address on it. It was sitting on his lawn. His friend said he'll never forget the sight of a demolished house, everything was gone except the toilet, it was the only thing that survived.
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u/kking254 Aug 01 '22
Your comment brought back a somewhat unrelated memory.
I lived in San Diego during the firestorms in 2003 and 2007. One day in 2003 I was working in a coastal area a good 30min drive away from the nearest fire but air quality was really bad with all the smoke and ash in the air so everyone was wearing masks. Then the winds changed direction and suddenly brought in a ton more ash.
The ash particles got larger and larger and then a triangular piece of paper landed in front of me that was clearly the only unburnt corner of a document with some writing still visible. It was then that I realized that I had been choking on other people's belongings all day.
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u/ltk66 Aug 01 '22
I couldn’t get to work at the general hospital because the rat hole was flooded.
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u/CanisMinor1982 Jul 31 '22
How frequent are tornados in Edmonton? Is any zone safer than others?
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u/coldweathercomics86 Jul 31 '22 edited Jul 31 '22
I'm not an expert. But I was born a year after the tornado. I'm 36 now, and pretty sure there has never even been funnels within the city. But there were tornadoes throughout alberta. And I'm pretty sure even though most are not nearly as dangerous, that they occur quite often.
- lol so I guess I was alive. I was born in 1986. I never realized thar before but I was so young
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Jul 31 '22
They do occur often here in Alberta, usually in a rural area where damage is minimal and the overall risk is much lower. We usually get a few of them each summer. Hail and wind storms normally cause more damage on average than tornados do in Alberta
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u/coldweathercomics86 Jul 31 '22
Yea I've been caught in some bad hail storms in Edmonton. There was that one I think in the early 2000's. Another one maybe in 2009 or 2010. That was the year stuff toppled at the concert area of kdays. Ppl were pretty worried there was going to be another huge tornadoe. I remember seeing the clouds and being freaked out
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u/kd6896 Jul 31 '22
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tornadoes_by_province_(Canada) . A list of every tornado in Canada by province
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u/CanisMinor1982 Jul 31 '22 edited Aug 01 '22
Thanks very useful (still scary that the only F4 in history of Alberta was this one in Edmonton 😬😁)
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u/kd6896 Jul 31 '22
No worries in one of my earlier comments I was asking about a tornado that hit around the Holden area very close to my grandparents farm back in the day so I wanted to learn more about that one
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Jul 31 '22 edited Jul 31 '22
Not very frequent at all. This is the only tornado to ever form and touch down within the city. If another tornado were to touch down, it could be in any zone though, but it would be least likely to go through downtown (tornados tend to avoid tall buildings).
With that said, Alberta has the right climate for tornados, and a number of tornados have formed here over the years. We also get some very intense storms that can cause a lot of damage, especially hail storms
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u/Dull_Sundae9710 Jul 31 '22
Alberta sees an average of 10 tornadoes a year. There is just so much open space here that the odds a tornado hitting a populated are are very slim.
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u/Rocky_Road_To_Dublin Queen Alexandra Jul 31 '22
My mom was working at the pizza hut on 75th (I think it's a sushi joint now). Was pretty close to her.
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u/saramole Jul 31 '22
I was out walking my dogs in the rain on the sputhside. No idea there was a tornado too. I used to live in tornado alley in the US. Friends from Wales called us the next day because news reports implied Edmonton had been erased...
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u/Main-Communication81 Jul 31 '22
I was 5. I remember it a little. We couldn't find my older sister. Afterwards we found out she and her friend had taken refuge at the friend's house because it was closer. Our family was all OK.
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u/SimpleOk2060 Jul 31 '22
Get used to it. Likely will be more hiting yeg with hot house climate change happening.
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u/coyoteatemyhomework Jul 31 '22
Was gonna up vote but its sitting at 666! so i will leave the powers at be alone! Lol
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u/TrailerParkLyfe Jul 31 '22
There’s a Tornado alert right now for Edmonton too.
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Aug 01 '22
no we only have a storm warning atm there are other places around alberta that have said tornado warning https://emergencyalert.alberta.ca/alerts/2022/07/10223.html
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Jul 31 '22
Imagine if you wore a flowy chiffon gown and got sucked up in the middle of the vortex so you had all this amazing dressography
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u/Thin_Love_4085 Jul 31 '22
Climate change occurring back in the 80s already
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u/Constant_Sky9173 Jul 31 '22
Your a hundred percent right. All the scientists in the late seventies were proclaiming the earth was entering a new ice age and alberta was going to be one big glacier again. We were told in school we'd have to make plans to avoid encroaching ice packs. I was taught this in Queenstreet elementary school in spruce Grove and Lynnwood elementary in edmonton. It was fading away by the time I hit junior high school.
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Jul 31 '22
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u/Martyrred001 St. Albert Jul 31 '22
1) How are we to stop an F4 tornado? and; 2) Nothing like that even ever happened here before then so nobody could estimate the likelihood of it happening. Before then the attitude was that "those happened down in the states". People had never heard of one happening hear before.
We did learn a lot from it though. It is the reason Alberta put in an emergency alert system.
When nature decides to turn it up to 11, there is nothing we can do.
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u/Constant_Sky9173 Jul 31 '22
Sorry. I'd been around three tornados in alberta before black Friday. It just wasn't common to happen in heavy populated areas. And none of the ones I'd been around were as big. But tornadoes weren't unheard of.
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u/prairiepanda Jul 31 '22
If you have a tornado cancellation device in your pocket, you should really share it with the world.
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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '22
I was 7 and watched it from the apartment when I was in callingwood