Last Updated Fri, 09 Jul 2004 12:08:07
EDMONTON - The cleanup continued on Friday in Grande Prairie, Alta., after a tornado rocked cars and tore off buildings' doors, windows and roof shingles.
The storm, which rolled through the city's downtown at about 3:30 p.m. local time on Thursday, also knocked over a power line, started at least one small fire at a hotel and toppled a big Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket from its pole in front of the fast-food restaurant.
Amateur video of the funnel cloud in Grande Prairie, Alta.
Nobody was injured in the city of 40,000 people northwest of Edmonton, officials said.
Dick Barendregt was driving his pickup truck when he spotted the tornado about a block away, heading directly toward him. He grabbed his video camera and filmed the action through his windshield.
"We watched doors and windows and all kinds of debris flying up in the air," he said.
Tai Williams was in his office when the tornado hit with no advance notice.
"There's no warning system, which is pretty ridiculous," he said.
An Environment Canada weather spotter at Grande Prairie's airport did call in a report of a funnel cloud at 3:27 p.m., but a tornado watch advisory didn't go out until 3:45 – 15 minutes after the twister hit.
The weather office's Dan Kulak said radar showed nothing to prompt the more serious level of alert, a tornado warning.
"You can't see things like this on radar," he said. "In terms of the rotation, what we could see was a band of very weak showers."
Kulak was scheduled to arrive in Grande Prairie on Friday to see what went wrong. He will also decide whether the event classifies as an official tornado.
-justin-
