Last week, I wrote about tornadoes and strong winds, and if you know me, I love talking about the weather.
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With the Meridian Source office on the north end of the city, we’re in a pretty gusty zone.
Whenever I open the door to get to my car, I can feel the gusts trying to keep the door closed.
As I was reading through some old local historical collections, I came across an incident where the winds really tore the roof off.
I don’t have a definitive date, but I’m nearly certain this event happened in 1976.
It was a Monday evening, shortly before 9 p.m. and a windstorm blew through town.
It was strong enough to blow the built-in patio roof off the Pollman home.
The heavy roof section was flipped over onto the roof of the main part of the house, smashing the chimney and air vents and crushing the power support post. It also tore the power lines off in the laneway.
The family was actually home at the time of the incident and heard the giant crash as the patio roof flipped over.
The damage was estimated at $1,500, a pretty sizeable amount for the time.
Most of the insulation had also blown away following the damage. An added effect of the windstorm was Mrs. Pollman, who was in charge of the two-way radio answering service for the various oil-well services in and around Lloydminster, was unable to do her job.
She’d been in charge of the service for six years and was on-call on a 24-hour basis.
The oil-well service was out until power could be restored.
I’ve never really lived anywhere where wind was a major factor. Where I grew up in southern Ontario, it wasn’t very windy.
Moving out to B.C., the mountains protected my little town from any real wind coming in.
That being said, coming to Lloydminster, it was quite the shock the first time my Tims coffee flew off my car’s roof because of a sudden gust of wind. I learned my lesson on that one quick.
Now, I walk to my car holding both Hope and I’s coffees with new techniques to get doors open without spilling a drop.
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