Perth tornado flattens family’s 100-year old barns

An eastern Ontario family says they consider themselves lucky after a tornado ripped through their farm near Perth, Ont., last week, destroying their three barns but sparing their home.

Mackayla Brady and her husband were standing on their porch last Wednesday when they saw dark clouds and heavy rain roll in.

It wasn’t until the wind picked up that they knew it was serious.

“We had big red barn doors that went to 90 degrees, and I’m talking like massive doors,” Brady said.

In a matter of minutes, all three of their barns were flattened.

The Brady family’s main barn is seen before it was destroyed by the tornado on July 24. (Submitted by Mackayla Brady)

“At 7:31pm we were taking a video of the rain coming in. At 7:34pm we were videoing the aftermath,” Brady said.

Environment and Climate Change Canada and Western University’s Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) both believe the storm developed sometime between 7 pm and 8 pm

A view of the Brady family’s barns after they were demolished by the tornado. (Celeste Decaire/CBC)

‘It’s crazy to feel lucky in such an unlucky time’

Brady said the tornado warning alert didn’t come in until seven minutes after they started filming the storm.

All things considered, she said they’re thankful their family was safe and that their home is still standing.

“It’s crazy to feel lucky in such an unlucky time,” she said. “But we are lucky to have our home here still.”

With the exception of a few knocked-over flower pots and a crooked light fixture, their house was relatively untouched.

Even the large chunks of debris that flew from the barns, including a metal sheet roof, landed in their soybean field and their tree line instead of hitting their home.

Their four horses also made it through the tornado unharmed. The animals typically take shelter and drink water inside one of the barns, but Brady said they weren’t in there at the time.

Brady says there was a strong chance their horses could have been in the barns during the tornado — but thankfully, they were in the field, braving the storm. (Celeste Decaire/CBC)

“They just put their backs to the wind and as soon as it was over, they were fine — which was pretty crazy.”

The storm left the 100-year-old structures unsalvageable, and the only choice now for the soybean farmers is to clean up as best as they can and rebuild their barns — something Brady says could take years.

“Obviously you’re never going to rebuild what we had,” she said. “They don’t make barns the way that they used to so it’s going to cost a lot more than what insurance will ever cover.”

In the meantime, she said they’re working on building something temporarily to house their tools, hay, and the horses.

NTP determines longest EF1 tornado since 80s

The NTP classified the tornado as an EF1, which can have wind speeds as high as 150 kilometers per hour.

The storm’s full path was about 600 meters wide and almost 40 kilometers long, stretching from Christie Lake to Jasper Lake and going by Rideau Ferry, Ont., south of Perth.

“It’s the longest EF1-level tornado that Canada’s had since 1980,” said Aaron Jaffe, an NTP researcher.

Darren Gibson says the weather seems much different — especially when it comes to the wind — than what it was 20 years ago when he first joined the local fire department. (Nick Persaud/CBC)

The NTP team was in Perth over the weekend to assess the storm damage and determined that the worst of it was to the Brady’s property.

“I spoke to the property owners, and honestly they were in better spirits than you’d expect,” Jaffe said.

“It’s obviously terrible for them that they lost all that property, but what matters most is that they were OK.”

‘Get prepared’

Darren Gibson, the deputy fire chief with Drummond/North Elmsley Tay Valley Fire Rescue, said the department received one call about a tree falling on a power line.

Overall, the damage was fairly minor for a storm of that magnitude, he said.

“It is unfortunate there was a barn lost but other than that, we were pretty lucky in comparison to some other areas… a little more south of us,” Gibson said.

In the event of a severe weather storm such as a tornado, Gibson says people should go inside, stay away from any windows, and head either to a basement or under a set of stairs.

“It’s a crazy world, summer to summer, and you never know what we’re going to get,” he said. “Hopefully (the weather) starts to slow down, but in the event it doesn’t, everyone (should) just try to get prepared.”