Monday 27 March 2023

River Otter Quest – part II

 Yes, we went looking for river otters and didn't find any. JB figures it is Brigadoon, it disappears in between times! I suppose I should put my readers out of the suspense. It got me out of the house, and resulted in a change in scenery! 

UPDATE: I did read a news item stating that Tweed and the other affected towns, are getting some funding for clean up. This approaching a year from the storm. The province of Ontario is pretty slow, but our premier is pretty reluctant to spend money.

Here we were driving along, and I noticed the trees were just a mess. I came back home and found out about the horrid tornado: Tornado hit near Tweed on July 24th, 2022. The tornado picked up a truck (📹 Global News), and sent it 300m across the road. No one died, but they lost power and water. The Tornado Project sent up a drone, with amazing footage (on Twitter). The tornado travelled from Rockdale to Actinolite, just north of Tweed. Classified as an EF2, with winds estimated at 190 km/h. It had a track length of 55.8km, and a maximum width of 1420 metres, said Environment Canada.

I first noticed it when I took a photo of the turtle fence. But the damage was obvious. It devastated the campground, as well as the Zen Forest Meditation Centre (YouTube 📹 ). The video, including drone footage from CTV news, was interesting. While they lost 500 old trees, none of the buildings, nor their marble, hand-crafted Buddhas, were damaged. Volunteers helped clear the property.

Black River Trading Company estimated they had $200,000 in clean up costs. CBC posted images of the damage. 

They did some stories about the damage in early 2023, and said it was painfully slow, since municipal crews don't have the training to get rid of the tree damage. 

Sunday morning, having just posted my initial trip photos, I read that Highway #7 was closed between Highways #41 and #37 (Tweed), with Flinton Rd. being the detour. That's where we were! There was an incident on the highway, that closed the road and didn't open up until midnight, when they finished the investigation and cleanup. Such incidents are not a surprise.

10 comments:

Tom said...

...those trees are a mess!

Barbara Rogers said...

I remember seeing a swath of tangled pines on the side of a mountain in TN from a tornado touchdown. They are so brutal, and unexpected. I'm glad nobody was hurt in that storm. Yes, cleanup would be hard! Sorry no otters...one of my favorite animals.

RedPat said...

I'm glad that we don't see many tornadoes here.

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
The sea otters around here are just as elusive, Jenn, but yes, at least it gets us out looking! YAM xx

Anvilcloud said...

Last fall I was surprised by all of the damage by #7 as we neared Tweed.

Bleubeard and Elizabeth said...

Losing 500 trees can be almost as deadly as losing the Buddha statues. At least the statues were saved. Sorry for their loss.

Divers and Sundry said...

Tornadoes are scary! We're used to the warnings down here, but we never get used to the destruction :(

Elephant's Child said...

I am sorry that you didn't see the otters but glad you got out and that you shared some of what you saw. Tornadoes are powerful beasts.

William Kendall said...

What a storm that was.

Phil Slade said...

I'm not surprised your otters and other animals go missing during such storms. It happens here but obviously to a lesser degree. We are all ready for Spring to appear but two or more weks late.