HomeMy WebLinkAbout590"Article taken from the Globe and Mail, Friday, July 29, 1966, by Don Delapante.
Small tornado wreaks big havoc, Smacks Bay Ridges for $125,000
By DON DELAPLANTE
Globe and Mail Reporter BAY RIDGES - A small tornado slammed across Frenchman's
Bay yesterday morning, cutting an erratic path of havoc along the east shore and along
Sandbar Road on the south side of the bay. Damage may run to $125,000.
Darkness descended on the area in Pickering Township for 10 minutes as
100-mile-an-hour winds picked planes and boats out of the water, knocked
down trees and wrecked telephone and hydro wires. Bay Ridges is south of
Highway 401 about five miles east of the Metro Toronto boundary.
Irvin Gill of Sandbar Road leaped out of bed as a plane crashed out of a tree and
wrecked itself on his front lawn. The plane had been picked from the water
40 yards along the shore, hoisted 50 feet in the air and driven into the tree.
half a mile away,"" said Ron Playford of Bay Street, cheerfully. He and most other
residents regarded the storm as an interesting adventure.
Mrs. Malcolm Pallant of Sandbar Road said the darkness was so intense that,
though she heard two tremendous crashes, she couldn't see two large trees about
40 feet away across the road as they were blown down.
TV aerials, hydro lines and branches of trees littered the streets and blocked traffic for
much of the morning. One building near the marina, which housed a store,
was completely obscured by fallen branches. A 70-foot ship-to-shore radio tower was
crumpled into junk.
A large trimaran that had cost builder Werner Buessecker $10,000, was overturned and
damaged. Yesterday afternoon several men struggled to get it righted.
Damage was confined to a small area of the waterfront town of 7,000, though windblown
foliage was scattered over a wide area.
Police in the Pickering Township station about a mile away, where there were
moderate winds and rain, couldn't at first believe the reports of extensive damage.
But when they arrived, they swiftly changed their minds, said Chief Reg Parker.
""I haven't seen anything like this since Hurricane Hazel.""
Numreous persons saw the racing black funnel of cloud which accompanide the tornado.
John Keller, township plumbing inspector, said he saw it on his way to work as it travelled
over Lake Ontario.
Another plane, owned by Walter Travers of St. Andrews Gardens, Toronto,
and Stanley Wade of Bunty Lane, Toronto, was tossed in the air in the middle of the bay,
backrolled and landed on its back, almost totally submerged.
A third plane raced on its pontoons up the shore at the west end of Sandbar Road,
broke off a wing on a tree and displaced its motor.
A man and a boy, fishing on the bay, were reported lost in the storm, but Pickering
Constable Don Martin and Henry Raetsen quickly found them. They were identified as
Howard Callan, 65, of Elmer Avenue, Toronto and his grandson, Tommy, 11,
of Gerrard Street East.
Mr. Callan said he saw the sky grow black and a black funnel of cloud approaching.
He rowed frantically to a sandbar, where he and the boy clung together as the winds roared
past.
The roofs of about 20 cottages were damaged by fallen trees and flying branches.
Mrs. Joan Avis and her mother-in-law, members of the oldest family in the area and owners
of Avis Park, ran to their cellar when a tree knocked down their chimney and crushed their
roof.
Ed Gaborie, foreman of Keen Kraft Marina, was in the yard as the office roof blew off.
Then a 60-foot poplar tree toppled on the marina's truck and two autos.
A 20-foot yacht was lifted and hurled over two other boats, crushing their upper structures.
In the marina's drydock, a 37-foot boat weighing five tons was tossed 15 feet on its side,
damaging planking which had taken months to install.
Nick Mantas, an employee by a lightning bolt and about 20 others were turned over by the
wind.
""Not only was my sailboat dumped upside down in the bay, but my lawn umbrella was
picked out of my back yard and carried into a marsh of the marina, had just left his car
when the tree toppled on it.
Police said that, although property damage was extensive and spectacular,
not a person was hurt.
The storm was accompanied by torrential rain and lightning. One large boat was sunk."