Laird Township walloped by terrifying wind storm

Environment Canada has so far given no official confirmation of whatever it was that hit the Pumpkin Point area of Laird Township at midafternoon today.

For much of the day, the weather agency had been churning out severe thunderstorm warnings that referred to the possibility of tornadoes.

We have confirmed that at 5:14 p.m. tonight, a pilot contacted the OPP to report a tornado sighting 40 kilometres southwest of Sudbury.

And at 6:25 p.m., an Environment Canada weather spotter reported seeing a tornado just northeast of Field, Ontario.

Whatever it was that had Jessica Mei cowering in the basement of her parent's place on Pinewood Drive near Lake George, the 20-year-old third-year history major from Trent University was in a state of sheer panic, phoning her mom to scream that she was in the middle of a tornado.

And Jessica does know a thing or two about tornadoes.

Bobcaygeon, Ontario

Seven years ago, she'd found herself in a bona fide tornado at a relative's home in Bobcaygeon, Ontario - one that had claimed two lives.

"I've experienced that kind of weather," she told SooToday.com tonight. "And judging by the weather, I suspect [today's storm] was a tornado."

Jessica had come home early today from her job at the Laird Historical Centre.

She first became aware of the incoming storm sometime between 2 and 3 p.m.

"I could hear the thunder in the distance," she remembers. "It was really dark. It seemed like it was eight or nine at night, but it was only the midafternoon."

Zeke and Skitz get frantic

The two cats in her parent's house, Zeke and Skitz, suddenly appeared frantic to get into the house.

Jessica started closing the windows, then noticed that she couldn't see outside because of the driving rain, which was mixed with hail the size of a pinky fingernail. It appeared strange to her that it was very hot outside, yet it was hailing cats and dogs.

But it was the sudden change in air pressure that freaked her.

Asked how she detected it, Jessica struggles to explain.

'She thought for sure the roof was lifting off the house'

"It's like when you're in an airplane and the air pressure changes," she says.

"It was the air pressure that scared me."

That, and the falling trees.

Jessica couldn't see them because of the rain/hail whiteout outside her window.

But she could hear them and feel them as they crashed to the ground.

"She got scared because she thought for sure the roof was lifting off the house - things were rattling," says mom Kathy Mei, who stayed in regular touch with Jessica by cell phone.

Phoning mom from the basement

Jessica grabbed the cats and her first thought was to climb under a bed.

She then had a second, better thought, and decided to scramble with the animals to the basement.

There, Jessica got on the phone.

She recalls Zeke and Skitz darting from "window to window, freaking out because they didn't know what was going on."

'Trees were falling and they caused the ground to vibrate'

"She ended up hunkering down in the basement because the building was rattling so much," says mom Kathy. "Trees were falling down and they caused the ground to vibrate."

Richie Notts from nearby Pumpkin Point Road was in Sault Ste. Marie when the storm hit.

He could see the lightning flashes from the International Bridge and wondered whether his dad Wayne's place at the tip of Pumpkin Point was okay.

Two swathes cut through the trees

When he got back to Laird, he found the power had been off since around 2 p.m., there were trees uprooted all around the house, pieces of the dock were blown away, but his dad's place had experienced little or no damage.

"It didn't hit our house. It started on the the other side of our property and went through the bush," Richie Notts recalls.

Notts noticed how the trees seemed have had a swath cut through them in two places.

Many trees that weren't toppled by the storm had nonetheless had tops or boughs blown off.

One was split down the middle.

'I saw a good 40 to 50 trees on the ground'

Mark Mei was trying to get to the house where his daughter was, but was initially stopped by trees fallen across the road.

When he finally got home, he persuaded Jessica to join him for a walk.

They sauntered from Pinewood Drive up Laurel Road, passing Maplewood and Oakwood Drives on their way to Pumpkin Point Drive.

"I saw a good 40 to 50 trees on the ground, ripped out by the roots, along with power lines and phone lines in the middle of the road," Jessica told SooToday.com tonight from the Galaxy Cinema at Station Mall.

'Some of the trees are popped right out by the roots'

She'd come to the Sault to try to calm her nerves at a screening of the new Dukes of Hazzard film.

"My daughter swears it was a tornado," Kathy Mei is saying. "Some of the trees are popped right out by the roots, mostly ash and conifers. Power lines are down all over."

Kathy says her log house survived today's storm with very little damage.

"Ordinarily we're in a very sheltered spot and everybody else gets the storms."

Today, it was the other way around.

But Environment Canada reported other areas that were hard hit today and tonight.

In addition to the two previously-mentioned tornado sightings, the weather office reported the following other occurrences:

********************** 1:28 PM EARLTON WIND GUST 70 KM/H

2:50 PM THESSALON HYDRO POLES/WIRES DOWN, LIGHTNING FIRES

4:08 PM GORE BAY WIND GUST 70 KM/H

4:40 PM MCGREGOR BAY QUARTER SIZE HAIL, METAL FLAG POLE BENT

4:40 PM ESPANOLA TREE FELL ON CAR

5:00 PM KILLARNEY WIND GUST 80 KM/H

BY 8 PM MANITOULIN TO HUNTSVILLE APPROXIMATELY 2500 FORCED POWER OUTAGES

******************* At 10 p.m., Mark Mei and Richie Notts reported that their power had still not been re-connected.