Canadian Gardening: What's happening in your neck of the woods? #22, 1 by Bettypauze

Bettypauze wrote:
more damage

Write up this a.m. thank goodness no death here but a young man who was tenting lost his life ..park near Durham

'Like a scene out of a movie'

A state of emergency is also in effect in Vaughan, Ont., just north of Toronto, where the storm tore the roofs off houses, uprooted trees and overturned cars. At least one tornado is believed to have touched down there.

Vaughan Mayor Linda Jackson said Thursday's events caused "millions and millions of dollars worth of damage" to the area.

"I'm presently in the Woodbridge area this morning and just coming here, it looks like a scene out of a movie," she said in a phone interview. "It's absolutely unbelievable the destruction that has happened in my community."

Some 175 houses in Vaughan have sustained severe structural damage as a result of the storms, CTV Toronto's John Vennavally-Rao reported Friday morning. Hundreds of others sustained lesser damage.

"Just an incredible scene yesterday, the storms that swept through, we're not entirely sure how many tornadoes may have been associated with this storm," Vennavally-Rao said while reporting from the scene in Vaughan.

"Environment Canada will be out today surveying the damage and trying to establish just how many twisters touched down."

Rob Damiani's parents had the roof torn off their house in Vaughan.

"My parents were inside the house, they were down in the basement, thank God," he told CTV's Canada AM from Vaughan on Friday morning. "When they got out, everything was gone in just a split second."

He said they had been living there for 30 years.

Based on the TV storm footage available on Thursday night, Coulson said the funnel cloud seen in the Vaughan area and in nearby Woodbridge, Ont., was "obviously" a tornado.

Others still need to be confirmed, he said.

The storm also moved through Toronto, where reports suggested that a funnel cloud was seen near the central intersection of Yonge and Bloor Streets.

With files from CTV's Canada AM and The Canadian Press



This message was edited Aug 21, 2009 9:37 AM