Intense gusts slam Sheffield

Environment Canada is looking into what kind of storm blew through Sheffield last night, causing significant damage.

The hamlet at the northwest extremes of Hamilton, near Cambridge, was rocked by a storm at about 10:30 last night. The high winds caused lots of damage – even blowing the bleachers in the community ball park across the parking lot.

Today, residents were cleaning up several downed trees as well as damaged cars and roofs. Mark Wilbrink recalled the stormy night.

“Around a quarter after 10 it got rainy, it started to rain pretty good. Then it got really windy. We heard it by the deck door and it seemed like the house was shaking and we went over to the stairs to get the children out of the bed and by the time we got to the stairs we it was over.”

“It lasted like 15 seconds.”

“It did quite a bit of damage in the neighbourhood, just like 3 or 4 houses here by the park and behind us. For example, that’s our trampoline over there. It was in our backyard about 1 to 200 feet over there and it just went up into the the tree there.”

“Thankfully nobody was hurt. We lost shingles on our roof. We gotta get that replaced and our children’s swing set was completely demolished and moved in the yard.”

“Yeah, we just saw the power of God in just seconds.”

So far, Environment Canada says there’s no sign a tornado touched down.