The Wingham Advance-Times, 1985-06-19, Page 19leisure, features and entertainment
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Moments with
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Page 5
Wednesday,'June 19, 1985
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e were very lucky"
By Henry Hess
"We were very lucky."
It was a phrase I would hear over
and over again as I worked with a
Mennonite Disaster Service volunteer
crew from the l3russels Mennonite
Fellowship, helping 'to clean up the
mess left by the tornado which
smashed through the village of Grand
Valley, population 1,300, on the af-
ternoon of the last Friday in May.
Lucky? To have lost your home,
your rieighborhdod, in some cases
practically everything you owned?
It would be easy to understand such
a reaction in the first flush of relief at
haying survived the awesome storm.
But now, six days later and with time
to survey the damage and realizejust
how much they had lost while neigh-
bors just a block away came through
unscathed, how could they still con-
sider themselves lucky?
After a day of working amid the
rubble of what had been, homes and
barns, churches and public buildings,
the answer was clear. Call it luck; call, '
it ahmiracle; call it divineprovidence.
Once they had assessed the damage
• and realized, exactly what had hit
them, those residents of Grand Valley
— and particularly of Amaranth
Street, which took the full 'brunt of the
storm — knewhow easily. the toll
could have been much, much higher.
TITANIC FORCES •
It does not hit you 'right away; as a
first-time visitor to a tornado zone,
just how unbelievable is the power
unleashed by such a storm. Primed by
media reports of vast destruction, one
comes expecting to see every building
flattened, splintered into matchsticks.
When you arrive and find many
buildings still standing, even in the
hardest-hit areas, the first impression
is that it could not have been as bad as '
was reported.,
Only slowly do you notice the
evidence hinting at the titanic forces
which have been at play here: houses
shifted on their foundation's or folded
up like a deck of cards; sturdy brick
buildings shattered as completely as
if by a wrecker's. ball; deep craters
along a sidewalk where huge maples
have been plucked_titket the_grounk
stubends of branches sticking out of
the roof of a house which they have
pierced like spears; skeletons of trees
with all their limbs twisted off.
• Three people lost their lives in the
area around Grand Valley as a result
of the tornado. The people here know
iLcould_hav-e-been-30;---
or even more.
• COULD HAVE LOST 200
One who knows how much worse it
could have been is Truman Galbraith.
Middle-aged. and sporting a black eye
and a nasty gash across his forehead
where he was cut by flying glass, Mr.
Galbraith is helping MDS volunteers
to clear up the wreckage of his small
trarn-,- reveled—FY- The
storm.
Behind him is his house, still
standing but not for long. The insul-
brick-clad frame building has been
shifted two -feet to the east by the force
of the wind and the stone foundation
has crumbled. A television tower
Which stood beside the house has
vanished completely; Mr. Galbraith
says he still has not found a trace of it.
Insidethat house when the tornado
hit were four children, two of his own
•
Aftermath
of a tornado
NO YARD SALE TODA Y --The signs
were still standing but that was about all.
after a tornado struck the public' library in
Grand Valley. The brick building was shat-
tered as completely as if hit by a bomb,
leaving only the sections of two corner
walls standing. Other buildings along
Amaranth Street were similarly,devRstat-
ed Miraculously, only three people in the
area lost their lives in.the.storm.
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and two others whom his teen-age
•
daughter was baby-sitting.
Miraculously all four are fine, with
the only injury a small cut from
broken glass.
When she saw a tree in front Of the
house giving way, 13-year7,94Aolie,...„
had—the -presence of mind to pull a
blanket over all the children on the,
chesterfield. This was enough to save
them from the barrage of flying glass
from the windows.
"We were lucky," Mr. Galbraith
remarks, including not only his family
but all his netAilgr..a.111.ttle.statement....
'TirTagine if it had hit an hour
earlier, when all the children were
walking down that street frori school.
We could have lost 200."
ABOUT 30 SECONDS
The tornado struck with no warning
at all, Mr. Galbraith reports. Two
Tninutes earlier he had walked out of
'his now:de rpol isbed_barn_across---the
laneway to a. large, steel garage
building and he recalls noticing the
black sky to the west and thinking
there would be a•heavy rain.
Inside the garage were two other
men. When the back wall blew in, one
man was picked up and sucked out the
front door. The other managed to grab
him by an arm, spinning him to the
ground. Mr. Galbraith has no doubt
that instinctive reaction saved the
man's life. Now he can joke about it a
little bit,
„.„
WATCHING HER HOME DISAPPEAR—Karen McPherson stands watching as a
power shovel sets about the task of demolishing what is left of her home, damaged
by the tornado4which struck Grand'Valley Like many others, she and her husband
have learned that their insurance will not cover the cost of building a new house.
•
16
By Henry Hess
"Been flying lately?" he asks a
younger man who come by.
once was enough," the other
responds.
Asked if he was the one who blew
out the door, the man says no.
"That was my boss."
He was the one who grabbed the
arm.
How long did the tornado last?
"About 30 seconds," Mr. Galbraith
says. "By the time we realized what
was happening it was gone."
-- - --COMPLETELY PL krTE NE D
There are others too who know well
just how much worse things could
have been, among them the family
which occupied a small cottage a little
fortu
further up Amaranth Street.
fTornt'
Returning to work after stopping for
lunch, we find a wagon standing lin hydriee
front of a pile of rubble which is lying v
• midway between_an-empty -foundation -
anda neighboring home which has brick
.
scam
• been damaged but is still standing. A
Using axes, hammers and crow- have
bars, we set about breaking up the side
mess into manageable pieces and chim
loading it onto the wagon to be carried two
to the dump. shatt
While trying to move one par- datio
ticularly stubborn piece, I slip around It i
to the back of the pile and discover to of a
my astonishment that one side of it is Comp
lying top of a car. , • da a few a
Suddenly it becomes clear that this m
pile has not been put here on purpose
to be hauled away, as we had assumed
at firk. It is the housewhich used to
sit on the now -vacant foundation a
dozen feet away. It has been com-
pletely flattened by the wind, folding
up like a house of cards. Even the
basement has been swept clean by the
tornado. -
While attempting to separate layers
of roof, wall and flooring, I lift a
section of wall and find theheadboard
of what appears to be a brand-new
crib. A moment later a fellow -worker
• pulls out a pink teddy• bear,
thoroughly flattened.
This was obviously a baby's room.
What would have happened had the
tornado struck , at night, with the
family at home and asleep? I have a
seven -month-old baby at home
mzself, and. the, prospect scares me,
There was at least one other chill-i
that home too, for later I come upon a
pile of school papers bearing a boy's
name.
Most of the • severely -damaged
homes have by now been cleared of
.furniture and other valuables, but this
family never had the. •chance.
Appliances and furniture lie crushed
under beams and plaster. I assume
• the family must have been out when
the tornado struck, for it is impossible
to see how anyone in the house could
• have survived otherwise.
Not everyone was as - fortunate.
Pointing to, a house on a hillabout half
a mile away,across the Grand River,
Reg Carter, a neighbor of Mr:
Galbraith's, says that is where two
women sitting on a couch were
"sucked right up through the roof" by
the funnel cloud.
Miraculously one survived. The
,Other, an elderly visitor from Scot-
land, di.d not.
CAPRICIOUS NATURE
On the sidewalk in front of the
•Galbraith home .a young woman,
stands, watching expressionlessly and
taking an occasional snapshot with a
small camera, while across the road a
large power shovel sets about
methodically demolishing what had
until a few days before been her home.
Karen McPherson. and, her family
are safe; there was no one home when'
the tornado hit. But now they must
find the money to rebuild. They went
over plans with a contractor th.e
previous evening and realize their
insurance will not cover the cost of a
new house. I _ . . ,
Meanwhile, from the brick
bungalow net door, faces peer out at
the destruet, on going on a few feet
away. This family has ' been more
nate; its home can be repaired A
able generator purrs outside the
t door, while half a block away a
o crew begins re -stringing ser -
connections to a couple of larger
.-homes-;- -which. have-- .
pering about on their roofs.
few doors down, other workmen
nearly finished re -shingling one
of a roof and rebuilding a
ney on an insulbrick home. The
houses next to it have been
ered or shifted on their foun-
ns and will have to be torn down.
llustrates the capricious nature
tornado: one building can be
letely devastated while another
feet away escapes almost un -
ed.
Please turn to page.two
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