Unforgettable
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Touchdown -25 years after the Barrie tornado
Posted By BOB?BRUTON
Posted 3 months ago
KEVIN LAMB PHOTO Aileen Ayerst looks through her photographs of the Barrie tornado aftermath from May of 1985. (May 30th, 2010)
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Aileen Ayerst waited 25 years to share what she saw in the Barrie tornado.
Now 83 years old, Ayerst kept pictures of the storm's devastation — taken by her husband Austin (Corky) and nephew Harry — secreted in a photo album, until now.
"You don't want to frighten people," she said Sunday from her Dean Avenue home.
"I wouldn't want to show any of them to young children."
The Ayersts lived at 403 Innisfil St. when the tornado roared through on May 31, 1985. It effectively destroyed their home, like many others in the Allandale area and other parts of the city.
But the family pictures show details of the devastation caused by an F4 tornado, one with wind speeds which reached 400 kilometres an hour.
In addition to destroyed homes, flipped cars, toppled trees and debris everywhere, the pictures show damage only a large tornado could cause.
The pipes to a steel gas meter, twisted like a pretzel.
A sign from Highway 400 in the Ayersts' backyard pool.
A two-by-four piece of wood which went straight through a window and deep into a wall.
Metal twisted and bent, almost in half.
"You can't imagine the force of that wind," Ayerst said.
She was working with the Canadian Red Cross a quarter-century ago, and headed home — like many others — when the power went out.
Ayerst drove along Essa Road, then headed up Innisfil Street.
"I couldn't believe what I was seeing," she said. "As I turned the corner, my husband and a neighbour came out of the house and were talking.
"I said to him, 'Where's the dog?'"
Briar, their Scottish terrier, was in the basement, the same place her husband had retreated to when he realized a storm was coming.
"My husband said he was watching at the window, and he felt there were birds coming. It was all black," said Ayerst. "But it was the tornado coming, over the hill.
"The nerves of my husband afterwards were terrible, just awful."
Ayerst is unsure she would have had the same common-sense reaction as her late husband, a postman, when he saw the storm coming.
"I would have been looking outside, trying to see what was going on," she said.
Ayerst and other neighbours went up and down their street, checking homes and making sure their friends and family were OK.
Their own home was condemned — it bore the mark of a red cross — and later sported the 'Gone With The Wind' sign, fashioned by her sons Paul and Tim with paint they found in the basement.
The Ayersts found immediate accommodation when the Coutts family parked a trailer in front of their home.
"It gave us a place to stay," she said, noting the family later moved to the Venture Inn, and stayed there the seven-and-half months it took to rebuild their home.
"We had lots of insurance, but it was a year before our bills were paid," Ayerst said.
"I can't complain."
They lived at 403 Innisfil St. until about three years ago.
"I'd like to be living there today," said Ayerst.
"I loved that neighbourhood."
bbruton@thebarrieexaminer.com
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