VIDEO: City focusing on restoring power as windstorm cleanup begins

RED DEER — Red Deer’s mayor says the priority is to restore power after a violent windstorm slammed the city Tuesday evening.

Tara Veer says trees falling on power lines around the city caused widespread outages and prompted the city to declare a local state of emergency that will remain in place for the next week.

She says one person suffered minor injuries at the Lions Campground and has since been released from hospital.

Trees were uprooted and homes where damaged when winds of more than 100 km/h hit the city on Tuesday evening.

"Slow Roll"

Central Alberta RCMP advise of potential traffic disruptions during weekend

13m ago

Chad Krahn

2024 By-Election results declared official

17m ago

Two-Year Diploma

Red Deer Polytechnic creates accelerated Practical Nurse Diploma pathway for health care professionals

4h ago

“We do know that it was a severe windstorm. We do know that there were exceedances of 112 km/h winds,” Veer said at a Wednesday morning news conference at City Hall.

“That’s up to Environment Canada to upgrade if there was a tornado-like activity. They have not confirmed that otherwise, but there were certainly significant levels of wind.”

Many people posted to social media pictures of damage, including part of a roof that blew off a store and landed on nearby parked cars.

Windows were blown out of Parkland Mall and one video showed scenes of people wandering around the darkened building wondering if they had been hit by a tornado. Across the street, Village Mall also suffered significant damage.

Town officials in Innisfail were also reporting widespread power outages and said the roof had blown off the town’s curling rink, though an initial assessment said there was no structural damage to the building.

In Sylvan Lake, about 600 customers were still without power at around 10 a.m. Wednesday. Fortis estimates it will be about 1 p.m. before all service is restored. Town officials say the bulk of physical damage occurred along Lakeshore Drive where scores of trees were downed.

Environment Canada says the storm developed in the Pigeon Lake area and that the Red Deer Airport recorded wind speeds as high as 111 km/h.

(With files from The Canadian Press)