July 14th, 2000
F3 tornado rips through Alberta camping area killing 11 people.
(This tornado ranks 4th in Canada's all time worst tornados)
 

Quick Facts: Time:  ~7pm, July 14th, 2000 Location:  Green Acres trailer park, Pine Lake, Alberta Wind speeds: ~300km/hr Width of funnel at ground:  1.5 km (about 1 mile) at max. Time on ground:  30 mins Fatalities:  11 killed, 132 hospitalized

Video clips - click image to watch:

E.C. talk about the tornado

Info on Alberta tornados

The Weather Network news clip

Around 7pm a supercell storm spawned a tornado rated F3 which travelled across a lake and into a camping area filled with trailers, killing 10 people and injuring hundreds.  The tornado damage path was 20km long and 1km wide at its greatest intensity.  It was on the ground for half an hour.      Several hundred trailers had been flipped upside down at the Green Acres campground, and a stream of tow trucks, ambulances, rescue divers and other emergency services descended on the site, about 90 miles north of Calgary.      The storm hit the southwest corner of Pine Lake at the campground, witnesses said, and lasted about 20 minutes, bringing hail and wind before petering out in the forest nearby.

Like ‘a Bomb’
Newspaper photographer Craig Douce said the campsite looked like “a bomb went off” when he arrived 30 minutes after the storm.
     “There were people partially trapped within their mangled motor homes,” he said, describing how he saw a man watching as his wife was cut out of their trailer with a chain saw.
     Felicia Cacace told how her trailer suddenly lurched about with her inside.
     “I was flying up and down,” she said. “I held onto the television, and then we crashed to the ground.”
     Another man who was waiting to be evacuated for treatment of a deep gouge in his left cheek said his trailer was hurled through the air.
     “When we landed, I was watching the ground come up. Everything went up and it all came straight down,” he said.
     Parts of trailers, wood and other debris were floating in the lake, said Pat Yakes, who was visiting a cabin on the far side of the lake.
     The weather system that created the tornado could be seen from Calgary, said Blair Morrow of Environment Canada, a government agency. A tornado warning had been issued for the area about the same time the funnel cloud touched down, he said.
     Alberta Premier Ralph Klein was traveling to the scene, said his assistant, Gordon Turtle.

The following pictures used without permission from The Weather Network :





Newspaper clips about this tornado can be found on Colin McIntyre's Page

  The same day, in Vaughn, Ontario, strong thunderstorms flipped cars and caused damage to homes
(top 2 pictures courtesy of Tomislav Stefanac in Woodbridge, 1.30pm and 1.58pm respectively):




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