Homes destroyed, livestock lost following large tornado in central Alberta

A dozen homes are damaged and at least five completely destroyed after a large tornado came through Mountain View County, north of Calgary.

Dean Allan, deputy mayor of Carstairs, said the twister passed between Didsbury and Carstairs, damaging 12 homes.

"A couple of them were completely destroyed. There's no deaths — just some minor injuries, luckily," Allan said, adding some livestock were also lost.

"All in all, everything went well, or as good as can be for something like that."

The tornado prompted an Alberta Emergency Alert on Saturday afternoon affecting the towns of Didsbury, Olds and Carstairs. By 2:45 p.m. that alert had been cancelled. 

RCMP had initially told media that injuries had been reported in the area, but in a subsequent update, police said while numerous homes were damaged, "it does not appear" that anyone was hurt.

Carstairs fire chief Jordan Schaffer said five homes were completely destroyed, including one where rescuers had to extricate a woman from her basement.

"Digging through debris, we were able to get her out without a scratch," Schaffer said.

"The house was 100 per cent gone."

WATCH | A tornado in central Alberta was seen from the highway

Tornado spotted by family in central Alberta

1 year ago

Duration 0:15

Deborah Bradbury-Dawe, who shared this video with CBC News, said her family was driving from Calgary to Edmonton when they had to stop due to the tornado near Carstairs, Alta.

Cheryl Beck, a resident of Carstairs, was having lunch in the nearby town of Olds when the province's emergency alert came in. She immediately left and headed home, but when she saw where the tornado was, she and her friend went west instead.

On that route home she encountered sweeping damage about a kilometre north of Carstairs. 

"I was just thinking like the trees, the trees that were down were huge and they just looked like someone broke them up like matchsticks … there was bales turned over, vehicles, like farm vehicles turned over, and clearly the house just severely damaged," she said.

"It was really devastating." 

Shortly after the emergency alert ended, Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills MLA Nathan Cooper wrote on Twitter that "multiple families have been impacted by this storm."

The total number of people affected, however, is not yet known.