Peter Metzger, the pastor at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in St. Albert, heard a noise Tuesday night as he and his very pregnant wife were winding down for the evening. It wasn’t a big noise, there wasn’t a crash. It was just a noise.
“As soon as we walked out the door, there was a big pine tree in our way,” he said.
A large branch from the tree had come down when a storm of wind and snow blew through the city Tuesday evening, ushering in gusts over 100 km/h in some locations. The storm caused widespread damage to people's homes and property, downing fences and tearing off shingles and fascia. People on Facebook reported trampolines, sheds and pools destroyed or relocated by the wind.
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When Metzger walked out his door, his first reaction was relief that the tree branch didn’t hit his house. The branch did, however, hit and damage the hood of his car. He was able to move it last night, but it isn’t safe to drive.
“My wife is nine months pregnant. She’s due next week. We were a little bit stressed about whether we’d be able to leave if we needed to,” he said.
Thankfully, they didn’t need a car last night and they have found someone who is willing to drive them if needed.
There was no other damage in their yard or around the neighbourhood, said Metzger, just a lot of litter.
“We're right at the end of this cul-de-sac so we've accumulated quite a few people's recycling bags. But no other damage that we've seen,” he said.
Metzger isn’t sure how old the pine tree is but thinks it might have been planted in 1965 when the church was built. The pine tree in question still stands, albeit short one very large branch.
They have no plans, as of yet, for the branch but Metzger said they did have a gathering as a church family a few years ago and had fires on the property.
“It'd be nice to stack (the branch) up and get that ready for future use.”
Mike Krill, a resident on Arlington Drive, said everything was shaking last night. A neighbour sent him pictures of shingles coming off the houses.
“So, we went out and we started picking up all the shingles from our houses,” he said.
Krill lives in front of a dog park where the wind is particularly bad.
“There’s garbage cans and stuff like that, there were garbage cans all the way down to the road. There’s a tree that we don’t know where it came from, it went flying through here,” he said.
Siding was torn from his neighbour's roof and he removed the downspout last night because the wind was “picking it up.”
He said they are going to need emergency repairs.
Des Chorney was one of the people left without power last night. The top half of a tree snapped off and hit a power line right behind his house.
“When it hit the wire there, it shorted everything out. Sparks were flying everywhere,” said Chorney.
The fire department came to watch over things until FortisAlberta arrived. Fortis was able to cut the tree off the wire last night, but they weren’t able to repair things until this afternoon, said Chorney.
“It was quite exciting. At first, there was this big bang, and I thought the TV blew up in the living room. The next thought was somebody’s shooting with a shotgun. Then you go running outside because everything’s black and you can't see – trying to get on the phone,” he said.
The city removed debris from his yard this afternoon.
Colleen Terlson heard a loud crack some time after 7 p.m last night. She said their neighbours phoned them and told them their tree was on the road.
“And it was, it had broken off about a quarter of the way up. And so, there's like 35 or 30 feet of tree laying across Granville Avenue and Greenview Crescent,” she said.
Terlson called the police and they told them to leave it alone until they got there. The city arrived a couple of hours later and got rid of the tree. Terlson said the only thing left of the tree is a couple of branches.
She feels fortunate it fell where it did and when it did.
“I'm just so glad nobody got hurt. And there were no cars on the road. Because I mean, that tree has to be between 800 and 1,000 pounds. That's a lot of wood, right?”
