Possible twister probed after storm leaves mark on CK

A Thursday afternoon storm that ravaged Southwestern Ontario left its mark on some areas of Chatham-Kent, with a possible tornado being investigated.

High winds, heavy rain and large hail resulted in reports of property damage, including to trees and power lines. Crops were also flattened in various spots.

At least one business had to close its doors Friday, with Blenheim’s Deer Run Golf Course announcing on social media that it had multiple trees down.

“We are grateful to everyone is OK. Just a bit of cleanup ahead of us,” the business said via Facebook.

Larissa LeGros-Vellinga, who owns and operates the golf course, told The Daily News that a golfer who left the course just before the storm hit “witnessed a tornado” in his rearview mirror.

“I’ve lived here my entire life and never seen anything like this in our 30 years of business,” she said. “The major damage was a lot of uprooted trees.

“We are extremely appreciative of all the help we are getting (Friday) with cleanup.”

LeGros-Vellinga added the course will be open Saturday for play, as the greens, tees and fairways were unscathed.

David Sills, executive director of the London-based Northern Tornadoes Project, said the project will be looking at the Dealtown area, near Blenheim.

“It was a big line of storms right from Michigan and through southern Ontario, into Ohio and New York state” that resulted in reports of wind damage, Sills told Postmedia.

Sills visited Alvinston, north of Chatham-Kent, after the storm Thursday and noted the damage appeared to be from a downburst.

“In a downburst, you’ve got rain-cooled air that’s dropping out of the thunderstorm” and “spreading out at the ground,” he said. “The worst of the downburst hit the town and they got a lot of tree damage.”

Sills said the project was sorting through a large number of storm damage reports to determine which to visit with a survey team.

“At the moment, there are two areas. . . warranting an investigation,” including a barn downed in the Petrolia area, he said. “There happened to be radar rotation over the area at the time, so we’ll be looking at that.”

As for the rest of Chatham-Kent, the damage was mostly localized.

According to Ryan Brown, the municipality’s public works director, there were pockets of downed trees throughout the municipality. Cleanup was ongoing Friday.

Chatham-Kent police reported four incidents for traffic hazards during the storm, and three calls for downed power lines.

Chatham-Kent fire and emergency services said there were 11 calls related to the storm. Fire stations 1, 2, 7, 9, 14, 16, 17 and 18 responded to calls related to wires down, trees and wind damage to buildings.

No injuries were reported.

Entegrus said there were outages in multiple communities starting just after 4:30 pm due to strong winds and tree limbs falling onto poles and wires.

“Most were smaller outages only affecting a few dozen customers in Chatham, Bothwell, Erieau and Blenheim,” said engineering and operations director Colin Hicks. “Our largest outage was in Tilbury due to a garden shed that had been blown into our high-voltage wires.”

He added that Entegrus line staff and management “responded quickly and worked diligently through the night” to make repairs and restore power to customers.

“All outages were restored before sunrise (Friday). . . Our distribution system proved to be very resilient during this violent storm,” Hicks said.

“As utilities often do in times of need, Entegrus has sent a complement of line staff to a neighboring utility (Friday), where they will provide mutual aid to restore power.”

Environment Canada is forecasting a calm weekend, with temperatures in the mid to late-20s, and a chance of showers Sunday.

With files from Paul Morden, Postmedia