By William Crooks
Local Journalism Initiative
Tornados and downbursts can cause similar damage and be hard to tell apart. A few weeks ago, pictures and video of the thunderstorm that swept through Stanstead on the night of Aug. 4, and the damage it left behind, were circulated on Facebook. Some of these pictures were reprinted in The Record on Aug. 7.
The Record investigated and contacted Environment Canada for more information. A response was received Aug. 8 from Jean-Philippe Bégin, member of the Warning Preparedness Meteorologists Team, that the damage to Stanstead was caused by a “microburst, with [an] estimated maximum wind speed of 90 km/h… on Aug. 4, 7 p.m.”
The human side of severe storms
Stanstead resident Julie Lynn Deadman spoke with The Record over the phone and gave some insight into the human side of these events from her own perspective. She is currently on vacation in PEI.
“It’s been crazy,” Deadman began, referring to the weather she has had to deal with even out east.
“[My kids] are not afraid of storms,” she said, responding to a general question about how her young and teenaged children react to this kind of weather. When the microburst happened, they weren’t aware of it at all, she added, though they live nearby. Some locals she knows of were watching the storm from Beebe “looking up” and she heard from other eyewitnesses the downburst came through an area of Stanstead called “Little Tokyo”.
Deadman and her family always check the weather before doing anything outside. She uses the Weather Network app to check its radar in preparation for her children’s soccer games.
