Officials with Environment Canada have confirmed a tornado did touch down near Grand Lake, N.B. on the weekend.
Saturday’s fierce storm hurled some structures, including a barn and a garage, the length of a football field. The storm also uprooted trees, broke phone lines, damaged buildings and knocked over a dump truck.
Cambridge Narrows resident Paula Belyea was outside her camper when the storm hit. She says there was no doubt in her mind a tornado had touched down.
“No question, no question. It was fierce and it was nothing that we’d ever experienced before like this,” says Belyea. “We’re good…we’re lucky to be here.”
Inspectors with Environment Canada scoured the area today, documenting the damage left behind by the storm.
“Walking around and documenting the damage and looking at the characteristics of the damage to see, are there limbs broken off? Are the trees uprooted? What direction did they fall? That sort of thing,” says Bob Robichaud, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada.
He says video and eyewitness accounts also helped to confirm that there was a tornado.
“The damage that we’re seeing here today and in combination with the video that we saw on the Internet, it’s pretty clear that this area was affected by a tornado on Saturday,” says Robichaud.
Robert Jones says his property sustained significant damage in the storm, the reality of which is just starting to sink in.
“It's just the things I have missing, like my dock and the lighthouse and the lawn furniture. It's just going to take, I don't know if I'll get it back this year or next year, it's just time consuming," he says.
Environment Canada spokeswoman Linda Libby says it could take another day or two for staff to determine the intensity of the tornado.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Ashley Dunbar and The Canadian Press
