Updated yesterday at 10:10 p.m.
“Oh! no, not yet,” whispered Michelle Sanschagrin to her spouse after a century-old spruce tree collapsed on their house in Saint-Lin–Laurentides, in Lanaudière, on Sunday afternoon.
“Five minutes before it fell, it was sunny outside,” says Michelle Sanschagrin, a resident of Saint-Lin–Laurentides since last April. “Then it went all black. It’s crazy. »
PHOTO PROVIDED BY MICHELLE SANSCHAGRIN
A spruce tree collapsed on the house of Michelle Sanschagrin, in Saint-Lin-Laurentides, on Sunday.
The couple from Montreal was not lucky. Since his arrival in Lanaudière five months ago, he has experienced two extreme weather phenomena. First the derecho in May, during which one of the pines in front of the house collapsed on the road.
This time, it was a storm of rare violence that uprooted a second tree, which fell on his roof.
We couldn’t see anything here. It was really raining a lot [sifflait] in the House. We were scared, we were really scared.
Michelle Sanschagrin, resident of Saint-Lin–Laurentides
The couple lives in the row of Ruisseau-Saint-Jean, a long straight road in the middle of the fields. Mme Sanschagrin is convinced that she witnessed a tornado.
But according to Maxime Desharnais, meteorologist for Environment Canada, the phenomenon she witnessed would rather – perhaps – be a microburst.
“It’s a very brief increase in the strength of the winds, explains the meteorologist, so winds that go from light to more than 100 km / h. In Montreal, a gust of up to the equivalent of 90 km/h was observed. And damage was observed with the same force in Lanaudière, such as trees 24 inches in diameter that were snapped. »
PHOTO PHILIPPE BOIVIN, THE PRESS
Rain fell in most parts of Quebec, including Montreal, on Sunday afternoon.
Thousands of homes without electricity
About fifteen regions of Quebec were on the watch for violent storms for the afternoon of Sunday. Alerts have also been issued by Environment Canada for a good number of regions, including Montreal, Laval, the Laurentians, Lanaudière, but also sectors of Montérégie, Centre-du-Québec, Beauce, Mauricie, etc. .
As of 3 p.m., the number of homes without electricity increased exponentially, reaching more than 99,000 Hydro-Québec customers during the evening. Some circuit breakers were damaged due to lightning, said Jonathan Côté, spokesperson for Hydro-Québec. Others were affected by fallen trees on the lines or broken branches.
Hydro-Quebec employees were unable to start repairing the lines immediately, because the storms were still in progress. In the evening, a hundred workers were deployed in the field, and others were called in as reinforcements, Mr. Côté told The Press.
“We are not facing such significant damage as what we experienced earlier this summer, he assures. Probably a good part of the customers will find electricity in the next few hours. »
Others, however, will have to wait until Monday because some work cannot be done overnight, said the spokesperson.
The regions most affected by the outages are the west of Montreal, Laval, Blainville, in the Lower Laurentians, and Rawdon, in Lanaudière.
The storm cells continued their journey eastward, passing through the Capitale-Nationale and Charlevoix. At the end of the evening, they began to lose their power, according to Mr. Desharnais. However, it was too early to assess the damage.
Wind, hail, lightning and rain
“I really thought that a funnel was going to take shape above us, it was turning directly above my head,” enthuses Maxime Forget, a 25-year-old weather enthusiast living in Saint-Lin–Laurentides.
I saw two trees at an angle to my house fly away. Directly. They left. At my neighbour’s, a tree broke in two. Seriously, it was more powerful [d’un coup] than when we received the derecho in May.
Maxime Forget, resident of Saint-Lin–Laurentides
There was also hail the size of a dollar, says Mr. Forget. Not to mention that lightning struck the building where he lives on rue Cousineau. “It was quite impressive! »
The young man, who is planning a tornado-watching trip to the United States with friends, does not think he has witnessed such a phenomenon. But he wouldn’t be surprised to learn that a microburst passed through his town. “Saint-Lin ate the volley,” he summarizes.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY SANDRA CHAPDELAINE
A cross adorning the roof of the church of Saint-Lin was torn off by the force of winds in Saint-Lin-Laurentides on Sunday.
One of the churches in the municipality even lost a cross.
“We were walking past the church. [de Saint-Lin] and we realized that the cross had fallen. It makes a big hole, ”says Sandra Chapdelaine, another resident of the small town. “And there is also a house roof that has been lifted. »