Tornado in Montérégie | “The chickens flew through the air like birds”

(Très-Saint-Rédempteur) “Through the window, I saw pieces of my patio flying away. »: citizens testify to the damage of the first tornado to hit Quebec this year. Very localized, it caused no injuries, but left clearly visible scars in the fields not far from Rigaud, in Montérégie.

André Carrière was feeding his cows on Monday afternoon when he felt the earth shake.

By the time he threw himself to the ground, violent winds penetrated his stable on Chemin du Petit-Brûlé, in Rigaud. “If I had spider threads on the ceiling, not one remained,” he says, sitting on his balcony, still in shock.

“The animals all froze in a pile. After 30 seconds, I said to myself: I’m going to go see. » Outside, the situation was nightmarish.

Not only had a wall of his barn been torn off by the gusts, but the top of his grain silo, made of concrete blocks, had also been torn off.

Then he saw the whirlwind. “In the air, there was a chicken coop. The chickens were flying through the air like birds. »

Miraculously, the tornado which touched down in the Rigaud sector, in Montérégie, caused no injuries.

It was time for pick-up at the Carra farm on Tuesday, as The Press.

Many neighbors, family members and friends came to help pick up the numerous debris that littered the fields all around. “My brother and I picked up two trailers of insulating wool and then boards,” says André Carrière, sitting on his balcony.

“I have seen such a tornado in the United States, on television, but never in person,” says the man whose family has lived in the area for several decades.

The whirlwind seems to have followed the course of a small river in the region before cutting through fields, taking advantage of the almost non-existent difference in altitude in this corner of Montérégie bordering the border with Ontario.

“We took refuge in the basement”

It was also much further south, on Rue Principale in the municipality of Très-Saint-Rédempteur, that other significant damage could be seen on Tuesday.

At this location, Daniel Gélinas and his partner, Julia Asselstine, examined, in disbelief, the surroundings of their home whose roof had been torn off. The man considers himself lucky to have taken a break while he was teleworking upstairs to go down to make a coffee.

“That’s when I saw, through the window, pieces of my patio blowing away in the wind,” he says. I took my dog ​​and we took refuge in the basement,” he says, amid the debris. “After 30 seconds I looked outside and it was already over. »

What remains of its roof: pieces of sheet metal hanging from electrical wires on the other side of the street. Remains of his terrace dot his grounds, where tools and garden furniture mingle with broken tree branches.

Less than 100 meters to the west, his neighbor’s house sits intact, as if nothing had happened.

Never, in the memory of residents, has such a tornado touched Très-Saint-Rédempteur, relates its mayor, Julie Lemieux. “We have already had episodes of gusts, broken trees and damaged roofs, but at this level, no,” she says.

Six or seven tornadoes per year

Based on videos received and images posted online, Environment Canada quickly confirmed that a tornado had indeed made landfall in Rigaud on Monday. A field investigation carried out by experts from the Northern Tornado Project at Western University, in Ontario, will ultimately make it possible to determine its strength and exact trajectory.

“By observing how the structures were broken and how strong these structures were, investigators can deduce the intensity of the tornado,” explains Environment Canada meteorologist Michèle Fleury.

Each year, between six and seven tornadoes are observed in Quebec from mid-May to the end of August, she indicates. “It’s normal at this time of year to have severe thunderstorms and for them to cause tornadoes. »

Now, to know whether such meteorological episodes are likely to occur more and more often, it will take decades of observation to confirm it, adds Michèle Fleury.

The mayor of Très-Saint-Rédempteur, Julie Lemieux, however, affirms that she is observing more and more of these types of intense weather events.

“As the years go by, we have more episodes of gusts, intense storms and torrential rains,” she explains. An increasingly large part of the municipal budget is used to repair damage caused to roads.

As recently as last January, Très-Saint-Rédempteur reached an agreement with the neighboring municipalities of Pincourt and Pointe-Fortune to share their civil security resources in the event of an emergency.