MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY — County resident Jennifer Topiwala has been among those helping clean up the debris from the Canada Day tornado, and she plans to continue doing so for as long as necessary.
On that fateful day, Topiwala, who lives on Rge. Rd 13 near Carstairs, was looking out her kitchen window. She saw the tornado forming and coming their way.
She was alerted about it by her app.
"I could kind of see the clouds starting to turn. And so I was just trying to play it by ear, like, whether the tornado actually touches down or not,” she said during an interview with the Albertan.
“At first, it didn't seem like it was going to touch the ground. And then it did.
“And then after about, I would say a minute, it kind of started to dissipate. And then I was like, ‘OK, well, we're in the clear,’ and then it went right back down. And then that's when it kind of started to pick up speed.”
That’s when she and her husband and their two kids ran into the basement to shelter from it.
While down in their basement, they frequently checked their security cameras via an app, and when all appeared calm, they ventured outside to check for damage.
When the family emerged, they found that the tornado had veered away from their home but tore through at least a couple of others about a kilometre north of their place.
The family found that some of their things that hadn’t been secured, like buckets and tarps had moved. But that was nothing compared to what their neighbours about a kilometre away had suffered.
The tornado totally wiped out a mobile home belonging to neighbour Elisa Humphreys and her husband.
“We met her at her property. And she said that she had gotten the dogs in the car. She said she left maybe 20 seconds before it actually hit the house.”
Topiwala said Humphreys’ husband was not home at the time the tornado struck.
The home had not yet even been attached to a foundation.
“It had just been delivered there. It was on blocks. They were living in it, getting the foundation poured,” she said.
Topiwala said Humphreys also had about three horses.
“One unfortunately was impaled onto the fence from the tornado. And then the vet came out and put the horse down. And then the other two had injuries, but they're OK,” she said.
Topiwala helped Humphreys and other tornado victims clean up from the storm, looking for belongings – whatever could be salvaged.
“She has a white Bible that has postcards from her brother from the UK and she was really wanting to find that, but we didn't find it all weekend,” she said.
Topiwala is impressed by the number of people who have pitched in to help tornado victims and the many ways they’ve done so from cleaning up debris to setting up GoFundMe pages.
A couple of businesses provided pizzas for all the helpers, and that was really appreciated.
Topiwala believes their home was spared because there’s a valley close to it.
She’s awed by the strength of the storm.
“It was powerful enough that it picked up a seacan and moved it to one of the other properties closer to Highway 2A and ripped the side off of it,” she said.
“You just saw a path of destruction that it had left and it was just kind of like it was directed towards us. But then for some reason the winds shifted and it just it missed us, which was great. “
“I definitely feel like it was something out of a movie,” Topiwala added. “Like, I didn't think it was real to see something that big.”