When Lynn Smith set out for a routine trip from her home in Halfmoon Bay to Sechelt on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast on Monday, she turned on her camera to send a video to a cousin who lives in the United States. Smith "jokingly started recording" to show her relative the "beautiful day" she was having with pouring rain and strong winds, stormy weather that seems normal for where she lives. "We have a generator for that very reason," Smith noted.
When she got onto the road though, Smith said trees started coming down "like dominoes" in the high winds and she knew something wasn't right. "Then I'm in a moment, I'm thinking this is tornado-like," she said. "And little did I know it was in fact a tornado.
" Western University's Northern Tornadoes Project, which tracks storm damage events across Canada, confirmed that what Smith captured on video during the windstorms that hit much of the B.C. coast was a tornado, with wind speeds of 115 km/h.
The footage from her car shows winds whipping up forest debris as a tree falls across the road and she gasps in disbelief. "My husband was born and raised on the coast," she said. "He's never seen anything like this and we've got neighbours that have been in the Halfmoon Bay area all their lives and they said they've never seen anything like this.
" Smith said she was worried someone was injured and called 911 when she turned around, flashing her lights at oncoming traffic to warn them of the downed trees. Northern Tornadoes Project execu.
