Robert Watcher
Well-known member
A tornado ripped through Goderich Ontario on Sunday August 21'st, 2011 - devastating the lakeside town 10 minutes away from where Anne and I live. Fortunately and really unbelievably, there was only one man that died while operating a crane that was loading salt from the salt mine onto a ship by the water - as well as about 32 or so that were injured but nor mortally - - - but the bustling town is all but shut down as recovery takes place.
Initially I wasn't going to bother heading over and taking any pictures. There were plenty online and I got a sense from them what was going on and didn't figure I needed to duplicate what I was seeing in those pictures. Also the town of 8000 people was declared a "state of emergency" and sealed off to the outside world, so I wouldn't have been able to get I to take pictures anyway.
Well, 1 week later to the day, I heard that sections of the town had just been opened and being that I needed a 32GB SD card to take with me on Sunday evening to record video as a bunch of musicians were gathering together in the basement of a Crabby Joes in Ingersol for a jam and karaoke - - - I headed over to the Walmart in Goderich and while there drove around the town observing what was going on.
Clean up was in full force - but damage was fully evident and extended much farther and more viciously than I could ever imagined from the images I had seen on the web. I saw that things were changing quickly with the clean up and so got my card and heading to my destination at Crabby Joes - - - determined to head back to Goderich early the next with a camera, to tell the story through my eyes. And that I did - waking up at 5:30AM.
First I wanted to take the back road through Benmiller - another area that got hit by the tornado moments after Goderich. My first evidence was a fire blazing in a field, cleaning up debris from stripped and fallen trees that once made up a bush. I entered into the small hamlet of Benmiller and saw trees severely damaged in tucked away hillsides and ravines. Then on to Goderich by around 8:00AM where cleanup was already underway for that day. Police had the Core Downtown areas sealed off and when noticing me walking as close to the barrier as I could - exited their cars and passed me to see what I was up to - - - but said nothing and carried on.
I ended up shooting for around 3 1/2 hours as I walked all back streets, from the lake right to the other end of the town. A swath of damage about 5 or 6 blocks wide, went from west to east without letup - right through the heart of town. I ended up shooting around 600 shots - narrowed them down to 263 final images that I will continue to cleanup and post on my Flick account - - - and made a very small selection of 23 images to post on the forum.
Images of Goderich Tornado Witnessed 1 Week Later - My Story:
Initially I wasn't going to bother heading over and taking any pictures. There were plenty online and I got a sense from them what was going on and didn't figure I needed to duplicate what I was seeing in those pictures. Also the town of 8000 people was declared a "state of emergency" and sealed off to the outside world, so I wouldn't have been able to get I to take pictures anyway.
Well, 1 week later to the day, I heard that sections of the town had just been opened and being that I needed a 32GB SD card to take with me on Sunday evening to record video as a bunch of musicians were gathering together in the basement of a Crabby Joes in Ingersol for a jam and karaoke - - - I headed over to the Walmart in Goderich and while there drove around the town observing what was going on.
Clean up was in full force - but damage was fully evident and extended much farther and more viciously than I could ever imagined from the images I had seen on the web. I saw that things were changing quickly with the clean up and so got my card and heading to my destination at Crabby Joes - - - determined to head back to Goderich early the next with a camera, to tell the story through my eyes. And that I did - waking up at 5:30AM.
First I wanted to take the back road through Benmiller - another area that got hit by the tornado moments after Goderich. My first evidence was a fire blazing in a field, cleaning up debris from stripped and fallen trees that once made up a bush. I entered into the small hamlet of Benmiller and saw trees severely damaged in tucked away hillsides and ravines. Then on to Goderich by around 8:00AM where cleanup was already underway for that day. Police had the Core Downtown areas sealed off and when noticing me walking as close to the barrier as I could - exited their cars and passed me to see what I was up to - - - but said nothing and carried on.
I ended up shooting for around 3 1/2 hours as I walked all back streets, from the lake right to the other end of the town. A swath of damage about 5 or 6 blocks wide, went from west to east without letup - right through the heart of town. I ended up shooting around 600 shots - narrowed them down to 263 final images that I will continue to cleanup and post on my Flick account - - - and made a very small selection of 23 images to post on the forum.
Images of Goderich Tornado Witnessed 1 Week Later - My Story:
