Queens Line 12th of July 2002 Storm

There are times in our lives when everything changes and you never expected it, and there are times when nothing changes even though you did expect it. Life is very fickle like that. Because of constant circumstances beyond our control, things take place that we cannot predict even when we think we know all the elements of the equation, and we're right down to the x = _ part. 

On the 12th of July, 2002, Dad and I were sowing buckwheat in the back field on MacKay's side. The only reason I can remember the date is because the 12th of July is the last recommended day of the year you can safely plant buckwheat in our temperate zone of Ontario. 

It was a great day for it.

Dad was running our big Cockshutt 2150 pulling our White 251 disc and chain harrows on the West side of the field preparing the seedbed for me. I was sowing on the East side (the MacKay side) with our 1550 and Tabbert's International 510 seed drill. Our white 1995 GMC 3500HD diesel flatbed truck was sitting at the lower end of the field, loaded with bags of cleaned buckwheat seed. 

Thinking everything was going well, around noon we decided to get in the truck and head to the house to switch to the car and go down to the Four Corners to get something to eat at the chip wagon there. 

This was a particularly unusual day, news and weather-wise, in Eastern Ontario. The meteorologists were so concerned about a developing low pressure system that they actually had the Ottawa Citizen newspaper publish tornado warnings on its front page of the day. I had delivered the Citizen for about 14 years at that time, and had never once seen a weather forecast as front page news. 

While the air felt damp, and there was a light Easterly wind, which almost always spelled rain, it seemed like we had lots of time to have lunch and finish before anything of any merit happened. The cloud cover to the Southeast was thin and wispy. Overhead it was almost completely blue sky. A tornado seemed like a Chicken Little story at that point. 

We drove into the yard, got the dust washed off of us in the house, and got in our white 4 door 1990 Buick LeSabre and drove to the Four Corners to buy some lunch. At the chip stand we got whatever their styrofoam container lunch special of the day was, and settled down in the car to eat it right there, intending to go back home, get back in the truck, and go finish the back field. 

That was the last normal moment of that day. 

Suddenly, Dad grabbed his chest and leaned forward, moaning. He was in rather acute looking distress. I started the car and darted across Hwy 653 and onto Storyland Road and planted my foot, heading towards the hospital in Renfrew. Dad said he was nauseated and he was rocking back and forth still holding his chest with both hands. I grimly thought to myself, "4 minutes of heart stoppage/8 minutes to the hospital; This is the day I lose my Dad..." I cursed myself for not knowing CPR as I tore towards the bend up the hill at Storyland. 

By the time we got to Highway 17, however, Dad's pain was easing a little. He was breathing regularly, and he wasn't rocking back and forth in distress. He was still groaning a little, but the earlier desperation was no longer apparent. I didn't slow down much because I was still alarmed by the sudden and fierce onset of it. 

The sky was a little more overcast now, which had happened rather quickly seeing it was only about 25 minutes since we even left the back field. 

We got to the hospital, and Dad was quickly seen to due to his chest pain. It had nearly completely subsided, and the doctors believed he just had an extreme gas event. That turned out to most likely be correct as Dad lived another 15 years and never suffered any heart issues for the rest of his life. They wanted to keep an eye on him regardless, so we weren't leaving until they were certain.

While waiting there, it started getting darker. The wind picked up. Then it picked up several more notches. The glass sliding doors to the East were starting to rattle as they were lashed with bursts of wind. Then the power went out, plunging the hospital into a surprising amount of darkness. The backup generators quickly came on and the hospital came back online. It wasn't raining. It was just dark and windy. 

My thoughts turned back to the farm. The truck was sitting outside with the remaining bags of buckwheat on its deck. I wasn't sure if the lids were down on the seed drill. The machine shed doors at the back of Tim Tabbert's place were open from me getting the seed drill out that morning. None of that was good with what was now going on, weather-wise. 

Dad was being taken care of. He was comfortable and out of any apparent danger. I told him I better get back and see to what I could, and I'd be back for him later. He agreed that was likely for the best, so I said goodbye for now. 

Stepping outside the hospital brought the current state of affairs into a new focus. Nothing looked or felt the same as when we first got there less than an hour ago. In that part of town, I couldn't really see the sky for all the trees and buildings around, but the air felt different. It just plain felt ominous. I cannot describe it. It had never felt that way before. There was a wet chill to it that shouldn't have been there at that time of year, but there was something else I couldn't put my finger on. Something definitely didn't feel right. 

As I left town and headed out Bruce Street and descended the curved hill toward the highway, I caught my first glimpse of what was really happening. The traffic lights were out at the intersection of Bruce Street and Highway 17, which I had never seen due to a weather event before, but that was nothing compared to what was staring me down from the East and Southeast. The most solidly structured, tallest, blackest wall of fiercely angry looking cloud I had ever seen was advancing up the highway at an absolutely alarming speed. It seemed to extend right to the ground. This was far worse than anything I ever thought it could be. My stomach lurched and my heart shot into my throat at what I was seeing. This was bad and there was no escaping it. The height and depth and blackness of it was frightening to the point of giving me a heavy sick feeling deep in my gut.

Upon seeing that and knowing my time was short, I blew through the intersection and took the corner onto 17 at speed and stepped hard on it again for the second time in less than 90 minutes. As I tore up an uncannily empty Highway 17, I looked in the rear view mirrors at the atmospheric horror that was following me. All three mirrors yielded the same thing: an utterly black wall of swiftly pursuing cloud. I looked down at the speedometer: 140 KPH, or 80 MPH, and that towering menace behind me seemed to be keeping up! I couldn't believe it, and stepped on it harder. No cop was going to stop me in this, no way. They wouldn't want to be caught on the road in it, either. 

I avidly followed US weather online for tornadoes and hurricanes. I knew what we were facing here very, very shortly the National Weather Service would have called a 'PDS'; a Particularly Dangerous Situation. There would be very powerful straight line winds in this system, first and foremost. If there was a tornado embedded in it--which was more than likely--it would be completely invisible in the 'rain wrapped' environment that fostered it. This was a storm system we shouldn't be seeing here at all. It had its origins in hotter, damper air masses far further South, and should never have survived in such an organized fashion this far North. Regardless, it would be been perceived as extreme, anywhere.

There was no telling how long, in a North/South fashion, this system was due to its all-prevailing blackness. It could be and likely was enormous to be so dense. That meant a long duration storm of incredible intensity. 

The strange thing was, for how terrifyingly jet black dark it was behind me, it was dark in front of me, too, even though the cloud cover was behind. It was like that black mass was sucking up all the light. Something was really strange about it, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

I ripped up Storyland Road and the Queens Line, putting a small amount of distance between me and the storm with the speed I was going. Almost nobody was outside now. Tearing into my yard and skidding up to the truck, I jumped out of the car and into it and backed it up to the garage door. I left it running and jumped back out and started firing the bags of buckwheat off into the garage onto the floor in a scattered heap. No time to do it in any kind of tidy fashion.  

The last bag thrown off, I closed the garage door to keep wind-lashed rain from getting in, and jumped back into the truck and turned it around and headed for the farm lane. The approaching storm was now parallel to my line of travel, out the driver's window. It hadn't diminished at all. The time I had bought on 17, Storyland Road, and the Queens Line away from it was getting eaten up again, fast, as it bore down on the Queens Line. By this time Storyland was almost certainly in its monstrous clutches, and the Four Corners was about to be overrun. 

Blasting up the lane, my thoughts ran to what I could do. What little I could do, that is. I got up to the back field in record time, and the wind was now ripping the dust off of the soil. The lids were down on the seed drill. I hadn't been sure, but didn't want to take any chances. I jumped in the 1550 and started it and turned it head on into the wind and shut it down again and ran back to the truck. All I could do there. The wind was less likely to tear the lids off the seed drill pointed that way, or blow the 1550 over. The low center of gravity, four wheel drive 2150 was 7 solid tons of pig iron, so, if anything happened to it, it was actually going to be the least of our worries, because we wouldn't likely have a house left to live in. Or anything else for that matter. 

The unbelievable towering wall of solid blackness was almost upon me. Thinking about Tim's machine shed, I drove out the back field onto the Blind Line, and headed toward his place, three quarters of a mile away. I never drove on that narrow gravel road so fast. This would be the last time I was driving away from that incredible menace. Very soon it would be overtaking and burying me in its power, and I had no real idea what was in it. The radio was steadily broadcasting stern severe weather and tornado warnings on every local station I scanned as I tore across Kohlsmith Road and onto the 'blind' part of the Blind Line behind Tim's. I turned into the small field where the machine shed was and skidded beside it. I jumped out and ran to the shed and shut the doors and battened them. I wasn't sure that building was going to withstand what was coming but I was giving it the best fighting chance I could. 

The temperature was dropping fast from hot humidity to a nasty cool, damp chill. The wind was blasting the short corn rows in the field below me. 

The severe weather lover in me was not enjoying this as much as I thought I would. As thrilling as a big storm was to me--and this one in particular was absolutely incredible--I was also thinking serious personal losses or even death could be happening in that approaching blackness, and that was something I just couldn't get on board with. Everything about this felt bad.

I turned and ripped down Tim's lane toward his barnyard and house. Tim was away spreading liquid manure, so I thought I'd give his place the once over. 

Now the approaching tempest or whatever this thing happened to be was on my passenger side. It was as far as I could see to the passenger front and rear. There was no outer edge to it, just a solid looming onslaught; black, sinister, and towering now far overhead out of sight. Horizon to horizon. And right to the ground. This was beyond the shadow of a doubt the most powerful storm I had ever seen. It looked like the end of the world as it rolled over and consumed everything in its path in its approach to me. I hadn't seen a weather disaster movie that equalled what was now devouring the landscape to the right or East side of me. My last moments before it struck were now upon me. 

My hair was standing up all over my body in the positively charged ionosphere of the pre-storm air, signifying a powerful storm. Not that I needed that to alert me. I was on 100 percent high alert long before this time. I didn't need newspapers or radio stations or television sets to tell me that the most powerful weather event of my entire life was approaching--fast. All I needed for that was my eyesight. And my eyes had never seen anything like they were witnessing now. There was simply no mistaking it beyond that. 

Of particular note, for the first time it came to me that there was no sign of lightning anywhere. It just had to be there, but it was as if all the light it emitted was swallowed up like an ant in a black hole in the sheer density of the approaching storm cloud. That's what I noted was so strange but couldn't pinpoint as I left Renfrew: no lightning! I couldn't even hear thunder coming on the wind. That was so strange; eerily strange. There was only an utterly solid, towering, black wall of cloud. And it was moving; at a speed I had never seen before.

I believe in prayer and I certainly would have been calling on the Lord to protect us all in this. 

Romping into Tim's yard past his barnyard, I couldn't really see anything I could do to help him but shut his summer kitchen door. My thoughts then turned with a stomach turning lurch to the plight of Danny Tabbert's wife, Linda; at home alone next farm across the road with her two little children. I turned onto the Queens Line, and, for the first time, straight towards the storm. I put my foot on the floor and tore towards the other Tabbert farm. Cornering hard into their driveway with my big dually's front tires screeching, I drove past the house (there was no way their kids would be outside in this) and swung around in the wide yard made for turning the milk truck in front of their barn. The doors on their granary were open, so I jumped out and shut them, then dove back in and drove back up to the house. I bounded up the steps and pounded on the door. When Linda answered it, I yelled at her, "GRAB THE KIDS AND GET TO THE BASEMENT--NOW!!!" I didn't mean maybe. 

My heart was absolutely pounding in my chest as I took a last, fearful, darting glance up into the foul, inky blackness that now loomed far overhead like a sheer, unscalable cliff.

The monster is at the door, and it won't be knocking. 

This is it. 

As I fought my way back to the truck in the leading winds, that evil, towering out of sight, black, monstrous wall of sky just... fell on us. 

Instantly everything was plunged into 2 AM blackness. From the house door to the truck door, it went from midday to midnight. I could hardly open the driver's door to get in against the wind. I probably should have went to the basement with Linda and the kids, but all the windows were open at home and I wanted to try to get back there to try to get in and close them to keep the blasting sideways rain out and ruining everything in the house--if it survived.

The wind shrieked and screamed like a banshee and rocked the big truck in wildly powerful blasts. This was a 7000-plus pound dually truck with extra-heavy springs on 100 PSI hard compound 19.5 inch commercial tires, yet it felt like a cheap compact car the way it was being handled in this insanity. I quickly fastened my seat belt in case the truck got rolled. The driver's door and fender sheet metal were making muffled, rippling popping sounds in the screaming wind as it repeatedly caved them in and they rebounded. 

I turned on the headlights in the now positively black dark as the freezing cold sideways rain completely enveloped me and the temperature plunged even further. I was shocked at how short a distance the lights were any good for in the boiling inky blackness that surrounded me. I turned them to high beam for a feeble bit more penetration in this insane swirling evil nothingness. Turning back onto the Queens Line, and into the powerful straight line wind, I was surprised to find how hard the truck laboured against it. The hood fluttered at its front corners like a chicken's wings and quivered and strained at its latch, threatening to be ripped free of it. Or tear the latch itself off. I turned the wipers on full speed against the lashing sheets of torrential rain. They hit the windshield in powerful splashing bursts like a dozen giants throwing giant sized buckets of water at it. The wind was so strong I thought the wipers would get ripped off and then I wouldn't be able to see at all. I peered intently over the steering wheel trying to see where I was going in that pitch blackness and not hit anything or miss my own driveway when I managed to get there if I did. It was absolutely insane. The only thing punctuating the blackness, were green leaves and twigs and branches. They were everywhere, as if they had taken flight and were fleeing from a monster. They slithered like snakes on high speed video on the pavement in the headlights. They wetly plastered themselves to the windshield before the wipers brushed them aside and the wind tore them back off the edge to disappear from sight. And they just kept coming. I was stunned to see a white resin lawn chair blow past my driver's side. It went right down the center line of the road at what must have been at least 70 miles per hour. In that utter blackness, only interspersed with the peppering green of the leaves, that white chair flying past me 5 feet off the ground right past my window was other-worldly. Surreal. It just flashed in and back out of sight; there and gone in an instant. As most Queens Line yards in our area were a fair distance off of the road, I wondered where it could have come from. And I wondered what might be coming out of that roiling blackness next. Anything was possible in this.

I thought, by the way this heavy truck felt in it, if there was a small car caught on the road in this, it would be rolled over and over like a tinfoil ball, and I was on the careful watch in case there was one. 

Far more ominously, the apprehension, that, if there was a tornado in this, "I'll never see what killed me" darted through my mind like a spear. I shook it off and refocused. 

As I crawled along trying to see, some white hail started, and was vivid against the blackness. It didn't fall, though; it was driven straight at the windshield. It wasn't large and only lasted for a few moments before it disappeared. It hit the truck everywhere like gravel out of a snowblower. I was glad it was so quickly over and hoped no more was coming because a hailstone of any size in that wind would have smashed the windshield. And there'd be no windows left in any house it hit. 

Managing to somehow pick out my own driveway, I turned in and drove up to the house. It loomed to the side of the truck in a ghostly, muted white form against the surrounding, all-pervading, swallowing blackness. I was actually somewhat surprised it was even still there. At this point, I was glad to just be off the road. 

Not wanting to waste any time turning around to get the driver's door on the leeward side, I tried to get out against the wind. I could hardly believe it when I couldn't open the door against the wind on the first try. Putting my shoulder and weight into it, the instant it cracked open I was completely soaked to the hide. Just drenched. I got out and let go of the door and it slammed back shut. I could hardly push myself away from the fender to get around it. Once I got past it, though, it was easier, and I was going with the wind to the house. The icy cold rain with that utterly insane wind sucked the air right out of my lungs. I had to be sure not to get blown past the house door or I was in trouble. I got in, without having the door ripped out of my hand--and thereby likely torn off its hinges--and forced it shut behind me. The rain was blasting in the East windows over halfway across the kitchen. I got the three of them closed, thinking to myself, "What's the point? The house is going to be gone 60 seconds from now anyway", and that I should be in the basement myself. 

Everything else taken care of that I could, the severe weather fan in me wouldn't let me go to the basement--yet. I tuned my ear to the storm and my whole body to a sudden, precipitous drop in barometric pressure which would signify a tornado. I had the basement door open to just jump right down the stairs if need be. I went from window to window to see what I could as the winds violently rocked the house. It was stupid of me, I know, but I was pumped to the scalp with adrenaline, and my morbid curiosity just got the better of me. 

Fortunately, curiosity didn't kill the cat, and the storm finally started to diminish. The sky lightened a fair bit, but the sun didn't come out. The winds calmed down to a much safer level as we settled into a welcomed at this point and much more sane strong thunderstorm. The deluge and torrents of ice cold rain died down to a strong, steady downpour with reassuring bright flashes of lightning and rolling booms of thunder. I never was so grateful for a thunderstorm in my life. 

Thanking the Lord the house was still standing (and me too), I took off my soaking wet clothes, towelled myself off, and put on dry ones. Then I got busy and started mopping up the water lying all over the floor. 

There were tornadoes and downbursts all over the place that day, buried out of sight in the sheer monstrosity of that system. Thankfully none touched down in our area of the Valley. The wall cloud with powerful straight line winds that preceded the thunderstorm is referred to by meteorologists as a derecho. Many places around Ottawa and Hull were hard hit. Severe damage in our locality was surprisingly low. We were very, very fortunate. 

If it had been as bad as it appeared, I don't suppose there would have been a stick building left fully intact anywhere in its path. The leading edge, towering black wall cloud was a bluff, but for sure not much of a bluff. 

I only wish I had a camera handy to take some photos of it when I was going up the openness of our farm or down Tim's. They would have been the best weather pictures of my entire life.