A new video has been released showing the time a tornado landed in Uxbridge, Ont. over the weekend, ripping off the roof of a local brewery in the process.
The footage was captured by several cameras connected to a Tesla that was parked outside the Second Wedge Brewery on Victoria Street.
It shows the sky darkening rapidly when the EF2 tornado first touched the area on Saturday afternoon.
A camera in the back of the vehicle initially showed strong winds hitting a tent that had been set up outside the brewery, breaking the canopy and bending the metal frame.
Then, in a matter of seconds, a stream of rubble, including what appears to be wood and insulation from the roof of the brewery, begins to fly through a photograph captured by a front camera.
It all unfolds over about two minutes of filming and by the time it is done you can see another vehicle parked with at least two broken windows and a pile of rubble in the foreground.
The Toronto resident, whose vehicle captured the images, told CP24.com that he had just arrived at the brewery with his wife and seven-month-old son when the rain began to fall.
He said he received the warning of storm warnings approaching his phone, but that he was sitting inside and at first not particularly worried.
Garbage is shown hitting a vehicle in Uxbridge while an EF2 tornado landed over the weekend. (CanuckChris / YouTube)
The situation, however, changed rapidly.
“It started to rain heavily and while the staff was closing the bay doors at the front of the building, I looked at my wife and said, ‘Hey, it’s coming down really hard.’ later it was taken to the point that it was not an ‘oh wow’, but an ‘oh no.’ ”said Chris Kreasul.
“We were going to move to the back of the bar. We were two steps away from the table where we were sitting and then there was a very loud noise. My wife turned to protect our seven month old son from the glass that they were broken and I hugged them, covered them and covered my head. I waited for all the rubble from the roof to fall on me. “
Saturday’s storm caused widespread damage throughout Uxbridge, prompting the city to declare a state of emergency.
Environment Canada has previously said the tornado was embedded on the edge of a right, which is a widespread, long-lived windstorm associated with a storm line.
At one point, a maximum wind speed of 195 kilometers per hour was recorded.
“It was like a war zone,” Kreasul said of the scene outside the brewery after the storm passed. “There were trees felled everywhere, rubble of all kinds everywhere, the roof of the brewery was missing and through the parking lot above two vehicles. It just didn’t look the same as when we got there. “
Kreasul said he didn’t really think about checking the video footage of his Tesla until a few days after the tornado, as he was pretty shaken by what happened.
He said that while his car was “hit” with a cracked windshield and a damaged roof, he was able to take his family home to Toronto after the storm.
Most importantly, he said no one was injured.
“It’s a miracle that we did as well as we did. Watching the video, I can’t believe anyone was seriously injured,” he said.
The co-founder of the brewery told CTV News Toronto earlier this week that the business could be closed for more than a year due to the damage.
The brewery is one of at least 35 Uxbridge properties that were badly damaged as a result of the storm.