HomeMy WebLinkAbout587"FRENCHMAN'S BAY RESIDENTS PICK UP PIECES AFTER DEVASTATING $100,000
STORM
REAR WINDOW SMASHED
... Russell Smith, Ottawa
THIRTY-SEVEN FOOT CRUISER LANDS ON SIDE
... Five-Ton Boat Blown Off Caulking Mounts
TWO MAPLES BEND COTTAGE RAFTERS
... Tree Cutter Tired Of Buzz Sawing
Storm Air Downdraft Belted Bay Cottagers
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"$100,000 Damage Caused, No-One Killed Or Injured
Frenchman's Bay may have been the builder of fate for hundreds of east and south-Shore
cottagers early yesterday when winds up to 125 miles per hour lashed the area in a frantic,
five minutes.
The weatherman missed the call completely but today came up with an explanation for the
devastating storm that literally chopped 100-foot maple trees in two, capsized boats
moored in the bay, crushed roofs and sent rumors of death through the area.
A miracle happened. No one was killed or injured.
The tiny bay, just west of Pickering, provided an outlet for winds stored in the upstairs of a
rough lightning and thunder storm that was whipping in easterly out of the Toronto area.
A downdraft is what the weatherman says it was.
""You can get a downrush of air in the centre of a thunder storm. If it reaches the ground
it carries very strong winds, often up to 125 miles per hour, which appears to be yesterday's
case,"" said the weatherman in Toronto.
When the storm hit the westerly shoreline of the bay it fanned out because all the air stored
upstairs was given an enormous amount of running room over the friction-free bay.
As no ground objects, except scattered cruisers, aircraft, runabouts and rowboats,
could impede winds crossing the bay they grew at a furious rate then knocked cold the
east and
south ends of the bay, leaving the west side untouched.
Today, life is almost back to normal for the 500 to 600 residents on the stricken side.
The storm hit about 8:35 a.m. and before it was over a massive $100,000 damage or
more was done.
Impact of the blowup was so great that a 120-foot-long dock at Moorhaven Marina
(a 60-boat operation) was shipped some 100 feet away from its foundation and almost
collided with another pier. A 40-foot strip of the uprooted dock was heaved out of the water
onto another wharf and a pile-driver, estimated to weigh about two tons, toppled on a water
cruiser, damaging the cabin shelter.
In another part of the bay a Trimaran — a type of sailboat — was completely capsized and
was still that way late last night.
Meanwhile, hundreds of tall, healthy maples were toppling like pickup sticks, damaging
some of the approximate 120 cottages in the area, plus cars, aircraft and anything else in
the way of their falls.
BOLT BELTS BOAT
One large boat was sunk by a lightning bolt and at least 20 others were just whipped over
on their reverse sides by blistering winds.
Edward Gabourie, service manager at Keen Kraft Marina, was just opening shop for the
day with two other marina employees.
""It was quite misty. The weatherman's prediction was 80 to 88 degrees in
temperature with possible thunder showers.
It started to rain slightly. I started to get ready for work.
It began raining harder. Then it all happened at once. It was
like the sky turning upside-down,"" he said.
""I hadn't been in the shop (a wooden construction that was a leaning structure at the
end of the storm) more than three minutes. It was like a bomb when it hit.""
The 59-year-old Oshawa resident of 51 Meadow Cres. said he looked out a window of the
shop in the middle of the burst and all he saw was:
""A wall of water. The rain was coming down so hard nobody would dare to walk in it,
not to mention the winds that went with it.""
While he was inside a 20-foot cruiser was picked up bodily from one side of a dock,
lifted eight to 10 feet in the area and chucked to the other side, crushing the tops of two
cruisers on its way.
Seven or eight boats were capsized there; a 37-foot cruiser which the marina crew had
been caulking all last winter and spring was shoved off its launching pad and landed on its
side causing unestimated damage. A 60-foot poplar tree fell on a marina truck and car.
MORE SEVERE
""Hazel wasn't as bad,"" Mrs. Richard Avis, one of the longest residents of the area,
said in an interview. ""It lasted all night. This one was shorter but a lot more severe.""
Hurricane Hazel struck central Ontario on its historical pillage run Oct. 15, 1954 and was
the last major storm Frenchman's Bay residents recall.
SEAPLANE
Irvin Gill of Sandbar Rd., one of the hardest hit stretches, leaped out of bed as a sea plane
crashed out of a tree on his front lawn. The plane had been picked up from the water 40
yards along the shore, hoisted 50 feet in the air and driven into the tree.
Sherman Everard, living in a six-room cottage with his wife and two children,
just bought a plane Wednesday. The Toronto man said the Piper J3 was flipped by the
winds where it was moored in front of the cottage just off the shoreline.
The wings are bent down like those of a gull coming to rest on a seaside rock haven.
Even an ""Old Man and The Sea"" yarn cropped up when a 65-year-old man and an
11-year-old boy were reported fishing on the bay as the calamity errupted.
""They are dead,"" the rumor went after the storm.
But Pickering Township police said later that and his grandson, both of Toronto,
spotted the storm soon enough to speed to shelter on the west side of the bay.
CHILDREN ROMP IN TOPPLED TREES
... Parents Add Up $100,000 Damage Score
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