HomeMy WebLinkAbout589"Article taken from the Toronto Star, Fri. July 29, 1966.
—Star photo by Reg Innell
SEAPLANE LIES WRECKED ON ROAD AFTER TORNADO HIT FRENCHMAN'S BAY
Twister lifted it from its mooring on shore and carried it 30 yards through the air
Three planes wrecked, 12 boats tipped as mini tornado rips Frenchman's Bay
Special to The Star
FRENCHMAN'S BAY-A tiny 10-minute tornado with wind gusting up to 100 miles an hour
ripped through the cottage area of this Lake Ontario community yesterday.
Damage was estimated between $50,000 and $75,000, but no one was reported injured.
Three seaplanes valued at $28,000 were overturned and wrecked.
At least a dozen sailboats and one large cruiser were capsized, the tin roof of McKeen's
Marina was partially torn off, a 125-foot ship-to-shore radio antenna was demolished and
about 35 trees were uprooted and toppled onto cottage roofs.
One single-engine J-3 Cub seaplane was lifted from its mooring on shore and carried 30
yards through the air smashing tree limbs, knicking a shed corner and grazing the hood of
a car.
The plane landed upright in the middle of a bayfront dirt road about 30 yards from its
mooring.
Another plane, moored beside it, was brought down last night for the first time by
cottager Sherman Everard. It was overturned by the force of the violent wind and the wing
was snapped when it crashed up against a dock.
Neighbors said the plane had been moored with ropes which could withstand a stress of
about 2,000 pounds.
A third plane, a Stinson valued at $18,000, was flipped on its back.
TV aerials, hydro and telephone lines were torn down along most of the lakefront.
The town of Frenchman's Bay with a population of 7,000 missed the brunt of the freak gale.
Most of the town damage amounted to split tree trunks, fallen signs and scattered garbage
bags.
75-80 MPH WIND
Bob Holly, a year-round resident at the Bay, said he estimated the winds shrieked in from
the north-west at 75 to 80 miles an hour.
A month-old trimaran, a three hulled sailboat, taken out only three times by its owner was
turned over by the storm.
Werner Buessecker of Chesterton Shores came back from work to find his $10,000
timaran badly damaged. He said he had planned to take it on a holiday to the Thousand
Islands, and now didn't know what he'd do.
Pickering police cadet Bruce Pugh said he didn't see a twister—""it was too dark for that,
and anyway I was too busy bailing water out of the police station.""
He said ""water was coming in under the doors and around the windows
and any place else it could get in. It was just like Hurricane Hazel.""
The police station is on Highway 2, about half a mile from the Bay.
The weather office said more than one inch of rain fell in the area in less than half an hour.
Many roads were flooded. The Krosno Blvd.-Annland St. area was three feet under water,
the Pickering township engineering department reported.
The Bay Ridges housing area was strewn with wet, smelly garbage after cans set out for
collection were knocked over and sent tumbling by the wind.
John Keeler, Pickering plumbing inspector, spotted the twisting, funnel-shaped cloud over
Lake Ontario on his way to work.
Frank Battista of Consolidated Building Corp., housing developer in Bay Ridges,
said it was ""dark as midnight—you couldn't see 10 feet away"" during the storm.
Many homeowners reported backed-up sewers after the deluge, he said.
A 20-foot tractor-trailer, used as a construction shack at Ontario Hydro's nuclear power
plant in Pickering, was knocked over and blown to the edge of a cliff.
Mr. Keeler said the water spout he saw after the storm lashed the Bay area
""looked just like a long string of smoke"" as it passed south of Port Dover on the
Scarboro-Pickering boundary.
"