John Pearl considers himself to be a lucky man.
The Cassburn Road resident believes a tornado may have touched down on his farm near Vankleek Hill early in the evening of Monday, July 24, and he was in it.
Pearl had been baling hay and was driving a tractor while on the way to assist his wife Lise when a heavy thunderstorm hit. It blew part of the roof off of their barn and sent steel and boards across the yard. The flying debris narrowly missed Pearl while he was on the tractor.
“It almost hit me!” he said.
“It came so fast, it was wild!” he remarked.
Pearl said hail was also falling during the storm.
It was only after the storm subsided that Pearl noticed one of the boards had landed on the tractor, narrowly missing him.
“Maybe the roll bar protected me,” he wondered.
The only minor injury Pearl sustained was a small cut on his face. He did not even notice it at first, and his wife brought it to his attention after.
Pearl said he did see a funnel cloud as the storm approached, and everything happened extremely quickly.
“There was sand blowing in a circle,” he said.
The damage on the Pearl property was isolated to the barn roof. The power line providing electricity to the barn remained intact. Also, plants were temporarily flattened in some nearby flower boxes, and the wind destroyed a patio umbrella. At the property across the road, a large tree fell, and another big tree branch fell to the ground.
A tornado has not been officially confirmed as the cause of the damage to the properties on Cassburn Road near Vankleek Hill on the evening of July 24. However, the Pearls are going to contact the Northern Tornadoes Project at Western University to provide experts there with information. Northern Tornadoes Project researchers may also visit the site to assess the damage and determine if a tornado indeed touched down.
July 24 storm damage at properties on Cassburn Road. Photos by James Morgan
