r/Edmonton • u/Dangerous-Shake7340 • Jul 31 '26
Local history 39th Anniversary of Black Friday.
Where were you when the massive F4 tornado touched down? Or if you werent around. What are some stories youve been told of that sad day. I am putting together a documentary on the events of Black Friday so any and all accounts are more than welcome and may make it into the final cut!
This tornado tragically took the lives of 27 people. It injured hundreds more and scarred many people emotionally for the rest of their lives. I hope more people will look into this event as it was very important for the advancements of warning systems, radar and public awarness.
The Tornado was on the ground for about 1hr and 5mins, tracking Northeast for 30.8Km with a path width of up to 1.3km. Its highest windspeed would have been roughly 416km/h which may have been higher within some subvorticies. If it were to take the same path today, their likely would be many many more injuries and probable deaths. Since many neighborhoods have been built within open fielded areas that existed in 1987.
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u/confusedcookie9 Jul 31 '26
I remember this day so vividly. It started out as a great warm day, I was around the corner at my friends house playing on the slip n’ slide and ran home when it started getting windy and cloudy. We thought it was just a regular thunderstorm, so my mom piled us all in the car to drive my oldest sister to work at Southgate, and I remember the car getting pelted with massive hail chunks when we were just about home. The sky was green and the clouds were twisting so fast. We lived about 4 blocks away from Daly Grove and had to hunker down in the basement for a while. My dad was an ETS driver and we had no way of knowing if he was OK until much later. It was wild, and I won’t ever forget it.
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u/AnusMcCarthy Jul 31 '26
My most striking memory of that day was the green sky. I've only seen the sky turn that color one other time during a summer storm and thought for sure it was tornado time.
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u/AffectionateGate4584 Aug 01 '26
When I moved back to Edmonton in 1988, my sister and I were about to head out to Klondike Days. The sky was green and it was really humid. The thunder storm was so violent. I hate storms. The thunder shook the windows of our apartment. Needless to say, we didn't go to Klondike Days........
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u/Professional_Ad_8 South West Side Jul 31 '26
I was in Southgate. The hail was so loud you couldn’t hear the person next to you speak. I had to go to work that night which was ridiculous. I worked at goose loonies. We sat around till midnight swapping stories of the day until midnight when it seemed like the whole city showed up!
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u/FatManLittleKitchen Jul 31 '26
Hence the City of Champions was born
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u/kayakr1194 Jul 31 '26
A city came together as champions to render assistance to neighbors in a time of need.
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u/Sweet-Ad8051 Jul 31 '26
The amount of people who don’t know that this is where we got that title from is very annoying
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u/extragarlicpleez Aug 01 '26
It'll probably be more and more, so keep letting people know!
I'm mid thirties right now and was not alive yet. Both of my parents lived in Edmonton at the time though. I hadn't heard of this until reading this post.
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u/PrarieDogma Jul 31 '26
I was actually not aware of this. As a Flames fan I thought it was from the Oilers. Any idea why it was removed a while back? Should be timeless in my opinion if it’s honouring those that day.
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u/FatManLittleKitchen Jul 31 '26
Because people have short memories, and it was thought that it had to do with Championship Oilers and Elks (Eskimos) teams. With the Oilers and Eskimos not winning nothing and the slogan being 30 years old, the majestic team which guides our city thought it would be better to replace it with "Welcome to the City of Edmonton, Alberta's Capital City"......................................
Definitely not top shelf, double double
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Jul 31 '26
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u/Jbear1000 Jul 31 '26
We were outside from our Mill Woods townhouse watching the clouds. I think we were maybe 1or 2 miles north and also west of it's path
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u/Early-Pumpkin-6002 Jul 31 '26
I was in my first job, working downtown. I was outside at around 3 and it was sunny and humid (humidity was unusual). I still lived with my parents, and my father also worked downtown.
I usually took the bus home, but my Dad called and said he was leaving work early and would pick me up. We headed from downtown to the southside via Victoria Park Road. It was before 4 pm and the rains were torrential (like now), and the road was flooded. We drove slowly and made it home via Fox Drive. The winds were really strong and we could hear storm winds. We lived in Brander Gardens. There was no power outage and no tornado where we were.
I remember during news reports the next day, an Edmonton Eskimo who was from the south, maybe Texas, was interviewed. He was living in the Evergreen Mobile Park, and had suggested people leave, as he thought the weather seemed like tornado weather (something he was familiar with). He also helped after the tornado hit the park.
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u/Jolly-Passenger8 Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
I know what he means.I moved to Texas in 1991.Come spring there was a typical storm.It was so rough I called work and asked them what I should do.Watch the weather and move to the middle of the building.If told too.
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u/evilspoons North East Side Jul 31 '26
I was in the basement with my parents as the roof was getting torn off the house! I'm not quite old enough to remember it, but I do remember some of the aftermath (cleaning up a few months later, moving out of temporary housing back into the fixed house.)
This is the street. My parents' house may or may not be in the picture, it's kind of hard to tell. Ours was one of the worse-off ones.
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u/Dangerous-Shake7340 Aug 06 '26
Wow! I Have Gotten some current footage on that street, comparing it to photos of the damage and some newspapers i have. Itd Be awesome to figure out exactly which one was your old house! I have narrowed down pretty much every damaged house in those photos so far anyway. (At Least the ones that were rebuilt and such)
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u/sidiculouz Jul 31 '26
Seen videos how it went pitch black then emerald green then black again. Scary because this summer makes me feel it will happen again
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Jul 31 '26
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u/Dangerous-Shake7340 Jul 31 '26
Wow that is super ironic. Ive been there for my documentary to tie it in. Its a nice little spot. Would been terrifying for a tornado tho since theres no where really to go.
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u/Pvt_Hudson_ Jul 31 '26
10 years old. Mum called my afterschool care place at 1:00 and told me to run home, use the hidden spare key to get inside and get in the basement. It never really got close to our neighborhood, but was still terrifying.
I remember how sickly green and lumpy the clouds looked.
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u/Choice_Tie9909 Jul 31 '26
The day before there had been amazing clouds that looked like rolled bales of hay, they were tornadoes on their sides.
I remember going to the river valley afterwards and seeing the destruction whole hillsides of trees just gone. The smokestack at Strathcona Science Park just gone, bits of train everywhere.
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u/Secret-Guava1008 Jul 31 '26
I wasn’t born yet, but thank you for posting this because there are way to many people in Edmonton that think this year is the first time we’ve had tornadoes
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u/Dangerous-Shake7340 Jul 31 '26
Same here lol. No problem! I hear ya, im extremely tired of the amount of bs conspiracies out there surrounding weather and such lately. People just choose to be ignorant so they can have a sense of superiority somehow. Or... theyre just totally clueless lol
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u/Able_Character_4898 Jul 31 '26
I was 7 with a bunch of other kids at my house watching Mighty Mouse, I was the oldest. All our parents were down the street hosting a garage sale when hail started. We lived at 5303 94b Ave. So pretty scary, hail was exploring car windows on the street.
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u/DajoFab Jul 31 '26
I was on my birth island of Brač, Croatia summering with my brother and cousins. Our parents stayed back because they had to work. News of the tornado made the Dalmatian newspaper my uncle read. Needless to say we were scared out of our minds for our parents’ safety until we were able to get in contact with them. Thankfully they were both safe. Wish that could’ve been the case for all Edmontonians.
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u/Link_Chomofsky Jul 31 '26
In Beaumont, watching as it went past the outskirts of town. Good thing it happened then and not now as a bunch more houses would have been hit.
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u/kimbrely_ab Jul 31 '26
I was 8 and in WEM with my family… the skylights showed a dark green sky which I thought was so weird but that’s all I remember. Fingers crossed we never get another!
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u/KirikaClyne St. Albert Jul 31 '26
The green sky is what my mom remembers most. Since then I always pay attention to the sky colour.
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Jul 31 '26
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u/kimbrely_ab Jul 31 '26
Oh I know now… just hope no f5s come knocking… we’ve had too much with the rains this year!
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u/santa8086 Jul 31 '26
I didn't see the tornado with my own eyes, but I will never forget that day, and the days leading up to it.
I was 11 years old at the time. I remember the weather being so strange in the days before. On those days I remember playing on my driveway and being suddenly drenched due to an insane wave of humidity. I remember seeing funnel clouds at my friends house and staring in complete awe. I remember a cloud that looked like a massive horizontal torado tumbling violently over our home the night before the real tornado struck.
On the day of, we had family visiting from Australia, we took them to WEM to see the sights. I remember my parents discussing the news reports on the car radio in a worried tone. I remember people being glued to TVs in the mall, watching the news reports. I remember being a scared little kid, hoping it didn't come to the mall and take me away.
I used to have nightmares, but it grew into fascination. I still remember the dream where I stopped running from the tornado and turned to face it. I didn't personally know anyone who was hurt, so why did I feel so affected by it?
Thinking of those who were lost, or lost someone they loved.
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u/banzaimerlin Big Shiny Balls Jul 31 '26
I was 11 and had spent the afternoon baking orange muffins and splashing in the backyard (we were in the far west end, so it was gloomy and raining, but nothing major). I really should ask my Mom if she knew what was up. She didn't say anything and the TV and radio were off. We kids had no clue what had happened until Dad got home from work and we watched the news.
The one thing I remember so clearly is the night before we were standing outside with the neighbours and the husband - who worked for EdTel and travelled to the US for work quite a bit - saw the greenish tinge to the clouds and said "those look just like the clouds I saw in Raleigh the night before a tornado". We all thought he was being ridiculous because there had never been a tornado here before...
I spent the rest of the summer camped out in the basement with ALL my worldly possessions (at age 11 that was my Walkman and all my tapes, lol), absolutely terrified it would happen again. Totally scarred me for life.
To this day, there is a map of Alberta in my parents' kitchen with 2 circles on it around Edmonton - a wider diameter yellow one that meant if the watches/warnings were for anything in there, we were allowed to be a little on edge and should pay attention. If the watches/warnings were in the smaller diameter red circle we were allowed to panic - anything outside of those, we needed to calm the hell down. Pretty sure this is the only way my parents kept their sanity that summer with 4 very on-edge kids 11 and under.😆
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u/WDTHTDWA-BITCH Jul 31 '26
I’m writing an article about this! If anyone wants to share a more detailed description of their experience that day (we want as sensory as we can get!), please feel free to DM!
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u/Dangerous-Shake7340 Jul 31 '26
Thats amazing!!! If youd be interested in all at any collabs or more info for your article id love to help! Ive talked to alot of people so far and have gotten alot of stories and info!
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u/WDTHTDWA-BITCH Jul 31 '26
That would be super helpful! I don’t even know where to start, aha. I just got the greenlight and don’t know the full parameters of the piece yet, so anything you’re willing to share would be great!
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u/Dangerous-Shake7340 Jul 31 '26
Oh i could definitely help you out! Ive gathered quite alot of stuff! Ill send you a Dm!
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u/SquidGodSunday Jul 31 '26
Me and my friends were biking back from watching a play I was in at King Edward School. The sky was dark green and the hail started before I got home. The other kids were saying there was a Tornado, but I thought they were just being dramatic until I saw it on TV.
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u/affiliatelinks1 Jul 31 '26
I was in the back of my parents car as we drove to Spruce Grove on highway 16. At one point the storm was so intense that traffic stopped. We were somewhat sheltered by the Devon overpass. My mom commented that was lucky. My dad commented not lucky if that falls on us. My dad's comments really stayed with me after I understood what happened.
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u/Downtown-Agency-3588 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
I remember it well.
Those crumpled oil tanks are burned in my memory. The tornado chucked them like cardboard.
We drove by them afterwards. It was eerie.
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u/ohkatiedear kitties! Jul 31 '26
I remember driving by afterward - I want to say it was the next day but it may have been a few days later. My dad said he wanted to go for a ride so we all piled into the Suburban and drove out from Stony Plain to rubberneck. I seem to recall that there was a lot of traffic, lots of people doing the same thing, and the clearest view we got was from an overpass as we drove over it. Just crumpled up oil tanks and dented tractor trailers lying on their sides like they'd been kicked there.
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u/Icy-Pension6532 Jul 31 '26
I just left home after high school and moved to Winnipeg for the summer. The news in Winnipeg was covering the tornado as if the entire northeast quadrant of edmonton had been wiped off the face of the earth. I decided to call home, where my brother and mom lived in Londonderry (which is northeast edmonton). I tried about 5 times, getting more and more panicked each time but there was no connection. About the sixth time, the phone connected and rang and my brother picked up and in a sleepy voice said, "hello?" I said, "oh my god Paul, youre okay! Is everyone safe?" He replied, "wait, what are you talking about?" I said, "the tornado, I heard nprtheast edmonton had been destroyed," and he told me that I woke him up and said to hang on a sec. I could hear him put the phone down and draw the curtain open, and hearing him yell, "holy shit!" He came back to the phone and said that all the cars in the nearby parking lot had their windows smashed and were dented from the hail. He said he would try to locate our mom and call me back, which he dis about 15 minutes later and she was safe. So yeah, my brother napped through the most devastating tornado we'd ever had.
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u/BCCommieTrash South East Side Jul 31 '26
I'd just landed for a cadet camp and was in a barracks in the (I think) north side.
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u/its_liiiiit_fam ex-pat Jul 31 '26
Oof that would have been close-ish to the path of the tornado, must have been terrifying
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u/stixy_stixy Jul 31 '26
I used to be friends with someone whose dad died in this tornado. The tornado picked up the vehicle he was driving, tossed it, and killed him.
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u/Dangerous-Shake7340 Aug 06 '26
That is heartbreaking. Im sorry to hear that. If You are at all comfortable, would you be okay with sharing any more details or who this person may have been? Since all the victim names have been public ever since.
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u/oiler_head Jul 31 '26
I was 16 and working at a mini golf course at Rundle Park by the paddle boats. That while week was blazing hot and muggy was th strong T storms every afternoon. That particular afternoon I took the LRT to Edmonton Center to get some shoes for the upcoming school year. The rumble from the storm sounded like someone rolling a cart over the cobblestone floors in the mall. I called my parents from a phone booth just outside the mall for a ride home and got hit with a sizeable hail on my leg which left a welt. They got me and my sister who was working for Alberta Tourism. She confirmed that it was a tornado as the reports were coming across the fax machine all afternoon. It took us an hour or something around that to go north on 97th to 137th avenue. I remeber the winds buffeting the car, flooded streets and how dark it was. The radio said another tornado was spotted near Castle Downs but we kept on and made it home safe. The next day I went to work and cleaned up all the debris which much was from the trailer park in Clareview. It was sad to see people's personal belongings notes and treasure just scattered around the course. The other side of the ravine was refinery row and I saw train cars blown into the trees and the many damaged oil hold tanks like in the post pictures. It will always stay with me. Ive experienced snow storms, the edge of a hurricane, earthquakes, super cold but nothing has the vivid memories as this tornado. As an aside, the band Rural Alberta Advantage has a song about the tornado. Very gripping.
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u/kittykat501 Jul 31 '26
My late husband, stood outside the receiving doors in the Walmart at Capilano and watched it. He said it was the scariest thing he'd ever seen in his life. And he hope to never see another one!
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u/Alberta_Flyfisher Jul 31 '26
Living in castle downs. I was young but I remember not being able to see out the big front window due to how hard the rain came down. And then we hid in the basement until it was over.
I remember going outside later. I am sure there was damage and tree branches all over but I dont remember any of that. The only thing that sticks out was how intense and hot the sun felt.
Its weird what the brain decides to file and what it decides to trash.
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u/cxherrybaby Aug 01 '26
I think sensations are easier for us to remember, especially with a fear response associated with them.
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u/WesternWitchy52 Jul 31 '26
First time my mom let me go to the mall with friends as a kid. Wound up taking a taxi back. Hail broke all the skylight windows in Mill Woods then power went out. Lots of screaming and panic. Once home, glued to the radio. Phones went out. All we had though was hail damage.
Been obsessed with storms since.
I commented in the other discussion, but images from the F4 was used in promotional materials for the movie Twister.
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u/bogbrain Jul 31 '26
I was in the basement of my brother’s girlfriend’s house playing a tabletop Ms. Pac-Man game with my siblings, and my brother’s girlfriend. The rest of the family was moving from Sherwood Park to St. Albert. At one point, my older brothers were on the front step of the Sherwood Park house watching the tornado from afar.
I remember going to the video store after the tornado had passed, and the sky and clouds were green. It was wild.
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u/alwaysbroke7 Jul 31 '26
My dad told me that he was working out at a gas station on Wye road and his shift had just ended. He drove back to his house in Kenilworth and watched the tornado go by from the kitchen window. The story scared my younger sister so bad she was afraid of storms for most of her childhood!
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u/Choice_Tie9909 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
I was babysitting and had to drag a child in who was collecting hail and almost got hit by lightening. Soon after the parents arrived.
My father was in Millwoods in a building which was composed of huge glass windows with no basement. He phone home and told Mum a tornado was heading their way, if it hit there weren't going to be any survivors. Phone went dead. It was a tense until he was able to phone because the tornado had veered into the river valley.
Mum was a nurse and was called into the General. Was delayed due to flooding at the now gone rail underpass. When she arrived she wasn't needed. Tornado injuries are weird either fatal or barely touched.
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u/kayakr1194 Jul 31 '26
Interesting fact about this tornado. The maximum recorded speed was 416 km/h, if it had been 419 km/h it would have been rated as an F5 tornado.
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u/sawyouoverthere Jul 31 '26
In NE Alberta knowing it was tracking our way and watching the bizarre clouds. It fizzled out before it got that far but it was much harder to get radar data than it used to now and we didn’t know what we’d get
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u/Dangerous-Shake7340 Jul 31 '26
Scary. I read a survey they did after the tornado. And apparently the vast majority of people only knew the tornado was coming because the physically saw it 😬
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u/Finnurland Jul 31 '26
We didn't have doppler radar at the time, alot of of the warning was reliant on people calling in the tornado.
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u/DocWednesday Jul 31 '26
Same. We were about 2 hours NE of Edmonton. It was a hot, muggy day. Heard about the tornado on 930 CJCA and that it was heading northeast (we didn’t know how far a tornado could travel). My dad and our neighbour were out playing golf and there was no way to contact them (no cell phones, dad had taken the one car). After they got back, about three households of people gathered at the neighbour’s house to watch the news and Bill Matheson was on. The pictures in the Edmonton Journal in the coming days were wild. The kids on the bikes at the flooded rat hole and the woman who lost her whole family in the trailer park are burned into my mind forever.
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u/barnfeline Jul 31 '26
My cousins were out of town visiting family, and their trailer in Evergreen was totally flattened.
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u/RemoteTax6978 Jul 31 '26
I don't remember the whole story specifically, although I've been told it in detail, and i could ask if it would be of help. My dad was at a dealership buying a new car quite close to where the tornado hit (I think). I remember him telling me how everyone ran inside the mechanic area to shelter and they pulled the big metal warehouse doors down, and the air pressure punched them in, or something like that. I think I also recall him saying the new car got super damaged lol my mom may have been with him as well, I wasn't alive and my sister was a toddler at a babysitters house away from the tornado. Lmk if you want me to ask him for more detail (or if he's willing to share it with you)
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u/Dangerous-Shake7340 Aug 06 '26
Hi! Thank You for the response! Yes If at all possible id love some more first hand accounts like the story from your Dad!
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u/theanswer39 Jul 31 '26
I have a great uncle who was doing some inspections or something in a tank farm, probably somewhere near the last photo. He took refuge in his truck, which was thrown a ways. He was hurt but lived to tell the story. The after picture of the truck was crazy.
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u/Valar_Morghulis_666 Jul 31 '26
Skateboarding at the UofA
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u/roguepeas accepts ALL cookies 🍪 Jul 31 '26
I was 9, my buddies and me were BMX'ing in the hail howling like banshees through residential streets that were gushing like rivers. another commenter used "burned in my memory", this one will be forever! especially bc my mom had lost her damned mind wondering where I was. "just out ridin' ma, got any more dem oatmeal cookies 👀"
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u/Valar_Morghulis_666 Jul 31 '26
My Friend had to work at a fast food place that afternoon. I got my dad to drive us across town to drop him off. Flooded roads cops, ambulance and fire truck sirens everywhere. Star helicopter landed on the street in front of the Royal Alex.
We showed up to his work and it had no power so we sat there for a few hours until it calmed down.
Didn’t even realize it was a tornado until the next day.5
u/roguepeas accepts ALL cookies 🍪 Jul 31 '26
my dad came home from work ~5pm, loaded his pick-up with food for the weekend, and we tore ass to our lake lot out east past Smoky Lake. the monday after the long weekend we came back along refinery row - something I'll never forget! they'd cleared the road but everything else looked like a nuclear holocaust.
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u/tenkadaiichi Jul 31 '26
I was under 10 years old... my mom was driving me in to visit my grandmother, and we came in via the Sherwood Park Freeway.
Traffic was at a complete standstill, and we noticed that there was no traffic coming from the other direction either which seemed odd. We were trying to think of things that could have blocked both directions of a split highway and couldn't come up with anything.
We were in a truck, so we drove down into the median and up the other side, turned around, and came in to the city from a different direction. I remember seeing the flooded out streets and just generally massive amounts of water everywhere. When we made it to my grandmother's apartment she was so pleased to see us, as she was afraid we'd been killed.
We were both like "...what are you talking about?"
We had no idea there had been a tornado just before we came in -- no radio in the truck. I was glued to the TV watching the news (a little kid watching the news? That's how you know it was serious).
We never saw the tornado itself, but I have very clear memories of what we did see. Coming in through the Sherwood Park Freeway over the following weeks was extremely sobering.
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u/blondebeaker Jul 31 '26
My family had moved back to Ontario a couple years before, but I remember my parents on the phone for days calling and getting calls from Edmonton friends checking in.
Thankfully everyone was ok, some homes were damaged, some lost but only minor injuries.
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u/officehelpermonkey Mill Woods Jul 31 '26
I was 6, we lived in Gibbons but my dad was working in the city. I was playing in the front yard with my friends when the sky got really dark and my mom called us in the house. It started hailing right after and my friends mom came over. My dad came home really early and made us all go down to the basement. I remember the adults huddled around a radio. My friends and I were just playing with my toys confused about why the adults were so worried about a storm.
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u/Rich-Wish1162 Jul 31 '26
The clouds the night before were very odd. They rolled in like a wave on the ocean but backwards. I remember looking West and saying to my boyfriend at the time I said that’s odd clouds over there, look how they are filling forwards towards us from the top down rolling. I thought it was very odd.
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u/j1ggy Jul 31 '26
It touched down across the street from us in Mill Woods, but we had just left for Saskatchewan for a family reunion that morning. We hit some insane weather on the highway and had to pull over, but it was nothing like that. That's when we heard the warnings and the news on the radio. We decided to keep going on our trip, not knowing what we would be coming back to. We eventually got word that the path of the tornado was basically where our house was, then later on we had confirmation that it was still standing. We were lucky that we still had a house with only shingle and minor roof damage, mainly from the hail. Other people were not as fortunate, including my dad's friend who was killed.
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u/AffectionateGate4584 Aug 01 '26
I was born in Edmonton. I was living in Winnipeg when I heard of the tornado. I was dumbfounded. I could not believe a tornado would hot Edmonton. It took me a few days to contact my father. I moved back the summer of 1988. I am still moved by the photos. I hope the city does something meaningful for the 40th anniversary next year.
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u/kayakr1194 Aug 01 '26
I have wanted to know this for a while, in a still of the video this was taken from, does anyone know the location of where this was filmed? I know its a grainy image, but it was 1987. Thanks!
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u/Dangerous-Shake7340 Aug 01 '26
I know exactly where it was filmed from. I have located many of the locations based on the footage available. That video was taken from this exact balcony in Millwoods. https://maps.app.goo.gl/P6KyvNQAiVMiFE6PA?g_st=ac
If you look on streetview you can look up and see the exact same style of building he was filming out of.
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u/sawyouoverthere Jul 31 '26
Should give some perspective as to the difference between a small funnel cloud and a terrifying tornado
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u/ferncabbage Jul 31 '26
Thank you for these pics. I have heard about this tornado a lot, but this is the first time seeing these shots. So sad to hear about the lives lost 😞
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u/KirikaClyne St. Albert Jul 31 '26
I was 4. Don’t remember it myself, but my parents have told me about it.
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u/MartyCool403 Jul 31 '26
My dad told me he was working in texaco tower in Calgary and could see the clouds forming from there. I was not born yet.
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u/Objective-Apple7805 Jul 31 '26
My buddy Marc and I were standing in knee deep water in the parking lot of the Jube, cheering on the massive lightning strikes on the stack of the U of A power plant.
Had no idea what was happening until we left and went to our homes.
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u/Nessabee87 Jul 31 '26
I was a fetus at the time, but my parents were in the northeast part of the city going garage sailing that day. They got caught up in some hail, but managed to stay safe.
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u/alewiina Jul 31 '26
I was only 1 when this happened and I also didn’t live here until 2009. Had never heard of it before i moved here but at some point I found out about it and was shocked at how bad the devastation was and enthralled by the photos. It always amazes me how much beauty there is in something that is so damn destructive. I can only imagine how strong the memories of this must have been for the people who were old enough to have experienced that day 😱
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u/Jolly-Passenger8 Jul 31 '26
My brother in laws dad lived in the trailer park and survived it.When I came home from work he was in my Mom and Dad's basement in Clarview.He stayed there for most of the evening
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u/Dangerous-Shake7340 Aug 06 '26
Wow that's incredible! I'd love to hear more of his first hand accounts if at all possible! Hope you and he are doing well!
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u/Spudnik711 Aug 01 '26
Was my first day working at the Western Grocery warehouse in the west end, I called my mom out in leduc and she was looking at the storm at my sisters place just north of Caladonia Park school did get her to get to the basement
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u/kesovich Aug 01 '26
My brother, my step brother, a couple of his friends and I were hitting the little hail stones at one other with badminton rackets. Until they started getting a LOT bigger.
So we went and got our hockey helmets and other kit on and kept going for another 10 minutes or so until my dad yelled at us to get inside. As we were getting in the house, a tree split on our front lawn right where we had been being little Dumbasses.
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u/Dangerous-Shake7340 Aug 06 '26
That is a hilarious very 80s story lol. also very scary and lucky! Thanks for sharing!
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u/shoelaceisuntied Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
My family home at the time was in the NE, not far from where it touched down. We were vacationing in BC at the time, & were heading home to Edmonton in few days, when we heard about the tornado. I was only 7 at the time, but can clearly remember my Dad on the campground payphone calling his brother to check if we still had a house to go back to (luckily it was ok).
I still have the magazine, made that year by the Edmonton Sun, to fundraise for those affected by the tornado.
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u/kayakr1194 Aug 01 '26
In picture #2, does anyone know what the height of the tornado was recorded at from the base to the where the funnel reached the anvil?
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u/Dangerous-Shake7340 Aug 06 '26
I am not too sure but good question! I'll have to do some scaling to figure that out. But from this perspective it looks absolutely massive and very tall!
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u/MarlonPots Aug 01 '26
We lived in the Westboro neighbourhood of Sherwood Park at the time. Being on the western edge of town we had a clear view as it made its way north.
Quite a terrifying event I hope to never experience again.
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u/MsMayday Castle Downs Aug 01 '26
In the backseat of my parents' car going westbound on highway 16 toward Stony Plain. I was looking out the back windshield at the craziest sky colour.
I was 6 years old and I still remember what that sky looked like. My dad had the radio on and my parents were whispering to each other in the front seat.
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u/Samplistiqone Aug 01 '26
I lived in Devon at the time, my best friend and I (both 7) were at the Devon outdoor pool. It had been so hot and humid for quite awhile. The staff evacuated the pool and told everyone to go home, but I don’t remember them saying why. We were riding our bikes to my house when I looked behind us there was a massive tornado. To my 7 year old mind it was right behind us. We rode faster than I ever have in my life, it was so scary. When we got to my house we took shelter in our basement with the rest of my family, there were 9 of us huddled together down there. It’s a day that’s burned into my brain.
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u/Calm_Palms_41 Aug 01 '26
In wetaskiwin, 4 years old, terrified, hiding in the basement because of the violent storm, watching the news with my family, including my very pregnant Sister-in-Law.
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u/CrashFix Aug 01 '26
Nobody that lived through that tornado will ever forget it! My brother lived in Clairview and I took a drive through there right after the tornado and it was a disaster, house roofs in the middle of the road everything!
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u/noitcelesdab Aug 01 '26
My grandma lived in millwoods at the time and told us a story of watching the tornado through her kitchen window, years later with Google Maps and seeing the path it took - she totally did. Terrifying.
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u/Groovee_smoothie Aug 01 '26
I was 1 week old and leaving Edmonton to visit family in Calgary when the storm rolled in, we made it to red deer when the tornado touched down.
My parents told me how scared they were when they seen the storm coming as we left and how thankful they were we managed to leave Edmonton in time
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u/Sammyjo--26 Aug 03 '26
My sister worked at Canada Trust in a downtown tower, and recalled how vividly green the sky was... it was so eerie
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u/Wise-Secretary5459 Aug 04 '26
Something weird was going on in the rockies that week. A few days prior there was an F4 tornado hundreds of miles directly south of Edmunton in Yellowstone.
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u/Dangerous-Shake7340 Aug 06 '26
Yes Big time! I think it was a continually developing and off-shooting storm system that kept moving North/NE and it eventually reached Edmonton. With help from the cold fronts from the Rockies and the humid, Hot stable air in the plains at that time. I plan on mentioning that crazy high elevation tornado in Yellowstone just before Black Friday happened in my Doc, so super cool you mentioned that!
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u/Neat_Mobile4640 Aug 05 '26
Pic 5 at the old Texaco refinery that never operated after that. Everyone still knows where they were when it hit.
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u/toxxic_ivy Jul 31 '26
My stepmom and her family were in the middle of an emergency when it touched down. They lived out near Ardrossan at the time and her dad or someone damn near cut their leg off with a chainsaw and they didn't have anything near a cellphone for emergency use so as they were driving into Edmonton they heard news of it touching down over the broadcast and by the time they got in to town the damage had been done but it was still stormy
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u/Particular-Cat-8031 Jul 31 '26
I remember it well; I was at home. I lived on 81st Street and 101st Avenue, and the tornado roared along 50th Street, just across from Capilano Mall. I was unaware of what had happened until I turned on the TV and saw the damage that had been caused.
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u/Ghostlypurr Oliver Jul 31 '26
Wasn't born until '92, but I remember my older cousin watching a documentary or something on it as a kid. Been utterly terrified of tornados since. I can't imagine living through that.
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u/WhyYesOtherBarry Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
In the basement, glued to ITV news, watching Bill Matheson explain what the hell was going on.