Most people do not regard Wellington as a tornado-prone zone, but this county has experienced them every few years since the beginning of settlement here almost 200 years ago. Indeed, one of the worst came early in that time span, when the nascent town of Guelph was virtually wiped out in 1829.
More recently, the most destructive was the deadly one that struck the Arthur and Grand Valley areas 25 years ago this month. Among the others was a vicious storm that caused major destruction across the centre of Wellington County in 1908, beginning in Waterloo County and ending with its greatest impact in the Tottenham area.
That storm, on the afternoon of Tuesday, Aug. 4, began as a typical summer thunder storm: the meeting of hot and cold fronts, with plenty of lightning and heavy rains. Today, meteorologists debate if a storm is a tornado using a set of tight definitions. A century ago descriptions and technical categories were much less rigid. Nevertheless, press descriptions in the days following the storm used such terms such as “miniature cyclone,” and the descriptions of the damage in a fairly narrow band leave little doubt that the storm produced a significant tornado.
Rumblings of a coming thunderstorm began in the mid afternoon of the fatal day in the Fergus and Elora area, and by 4pm a pelting rain, accompanied by strong winds, was coming down on the area. A half hour later the sky grew ominously dark. Then the wind picked up, driving the rain horizontally. Editor J.C. Templin, of the Fergus News Record, described the rain as having the appearance of smoke as it swirled around. Occasional pieces of hail struck windows, and stung the skin of anyone foolish enough to be outside.
The worst was over in a few minutes. When the stormed died down a little, residents began a preliminary assessment of the damage. The storm had broken off or uprooted dozens of trees in the Fergus and Elora areas. Fergus seems to have experienced the worst of it. Constable Alexander returned to his house to find a mature tree sticking through the roof. Part of the roof of the American Hotel’s stable had been ripped off, and had penetrated the roof of a nearby house. Bricks had been ripped from the chimney of the Beatty Brothers plant on the Grand River when it was struck by lightning. Miraculously, the structure survived.
Winds levelled most of the board fence around the fall fair grounds. Many of the town’s oldest trees were down or severely damaged. Gardeners saw their vegetable plots largely demolished.
Trees suffered badly as the storm moved east, through West Garafraxa and the northwestern part of Erin Township, and on toward Orangeville.
There was a great variance in the severity of damage. It appears that the tornado touched down sporadically along its route.
In West Garafraxa the storm pelted farms with hail, giving a temporary winter aspects to some areas, and passed slightly to south of Belwood village. Several farm houses lost windows to the driving hail. One farmer, Bill Clark, lost most of the windows in his house.
Most farmers were in the midst of grain harvesting that week. Unharvested grain in a number of fields was a total loss. Wes Hamilton, who had not yet harvested his wheat, returned his binder twine to a Fergus hardware store for a refund. His wheat crop was a complete write-off. Fields of oats, not yet harvested, were also damaged, and in some cases, completely flattened.
The storm’s effects were less severe for a short distance to the northeast, but then it touched down again in the Marsville area and nearby portions of East Garafraxa and Erin Townships, carving a wide swath perhaps about five miles long. Anthony’s Hotel in Marsville had major structural damage, as did the Disciples and Presbyterian Churches there. Farther east, at Reading, the fierce wind overturned the horse shed at the Anglican Church.
The storm passed the Orangeville area, bringing strong winds and hail, but producing relatively minor damage. But it had not blown itself out. In the Tottenham area it touched down again, resulting in what the Toronto Globe described as the “worst wind, hail and rain storm that has ever been known in these parts.” It was about 5pm when the storm arrived there, about a half hour after it passed through Fergus.
The course of the storm through the Tottenham area was about three miles wide and five or six miles long. Meteorologists might not describe that as a tornado, but that distinction would not have minimized the effects of the storm.
Hail produced much damage around Tottenham. Witnesses estimated the pieces to be the size of plums. Winds drove the hailstones horizontally, pounding them into windows and breaking hundreds of them. Torrential rain accompanied the hail, and on the streets of Tottenham running water carried the hailstones into ditches, producing what looked like small snow drifts. Horses and cattle, painfully struck by the hail and terrified by the thunder and rain, became crazed with fright.
If anything, the winds there were stronger than they had been when they struck points to the west. Several light buildings were ripped from their foundations. Trees up to 12 inches in diameter were snapped off like toothpicks, and the wind ripped others out of the ground. Several barns lost their roofs, and one house was completely demolished.
Farmers in the centre of the affected area lost any grain that was still in the field, and gardeners lamented that their vegetable plots had been reduced to shredded salad greens by the hail. Their flowers had most of their blooms knocked off the stems. As well, the wind ripped leaves off trees and the hail tore and ripped leaves that remained on the branches, particularly on maple trees.
Across the entire area communications lines were out of service as a result of the wind and hail. It was a hard blow to several local independent phone companies, which had only recently strung their lines, and were not anticipating major repair expenses. Telegraph lines, particularly on the Canadian Pacific’s Elora branch and on the other CPR lines into Orangeville, were also cut in many places. In some areas, the lines were on the ground as a result of broken poles.
The railways relied entirely on their telegraph lines to control traffic and to issue running orders to trains farther down the lines. For a couple of days after the storm, service was a shambles until the telegraph lines could be repaired.
The Canadian Pacific and the telephone companies were not alone in making repairs after the storm. Storm drainage everywhere was primitive at best in 1908. Streets and roads suffered washouts, and debris plugged culverts, many of which were undersize to begin with. No one seems to have measured the rainfall that afternoon, but it was certainly significant, perhaps two or three inches over the path of the destruction from Elora to Tottenham. All along the path of the storm there were small ponds in low areas, some of which remained for a couple of days.
Another problem for homeowners was flooded basements, caused by water pouring in a window or infiltrating through the foundation of their houses.
For all those affected it was an afternoon to remember, and one that persisted in family folklore for decades. Today, 102 years later, it is a reminder that tornadoes do not only strike trailer parks in the American midwest. They can also create mayhem right at home.