Trees down in Tagish, Yukon after weekend storm hits 'like a mini tornado'

Some residents in Tagish, Yukon were still without power on Tuesday after wild weather knocked down trees and power lines throughout the area over the weekend.

A couple of heavy thunderstorms tore through parts of southern Yukon on Saturday and Sunday, including Tagish, Marsh Lake and Whitehorse.

In Whitehorse, the strong winds and heavy downpours temporarily wreaked havoc, with brief power outages, flooded streets, and some fallen trees. But within hours, things were mostly back to normal.

Some people in Tagish felt they got hit much worse — pointing to dozens of large toppled trees still littered all around the community. They were also still waiting on Tuesday afternoon for the power to come back on.

"The trees were bending over the house. Then it changed to another direction and hail started coming down pretty heavily and water, lightning," said Lidys Garcia, recalling Sunday's storm.

"It's kind of like a mini tornado that you see on, you know, down in the prairies or somewhere."

Garcia stayed inside with her family as the tempest swept in.

"It was kind of like a flash storm. It lasted maybe 30 to 40 minutes, one hour the most, but it was quite heavy," she said.

Once the storm passed, Garcia went outside to assess the damage. Her house was mostly fine, but fallen trees had them feeling trapped on their street.  

"We couldn't go anywhere. We had trees on this side and on the other side. So there was no going anywhere for anybody in the area, in the street." 

Brian Thompson, another Tagish resident, recalled watching the storm build off in the distance across the lake.

"It got black and black and black and then the wind started coming from the other side, coming at us," he said.

"I see the trees start swirling. They're swirling. Was it just ... from the action of the wind or were they in a tornado? I don't know"

He watched three big trees topple outside his house.

"This tree, this tree and that tree. I was sitting right there and I saw them all drop within probably a 20-second interval," he said.

Thompson began to worry about his vehicle, parked where a falling tree could easily flatten it.

"Deb said I shouldn't run outside right now, but I didn't want my car to get destroyed." 

That's when the winds seemed to die down as quickly as they had whipped up. Assessing the damage afterward, Thompson also counted himself lucky — there were a few toppled trees on his property hung up in branches and waiting to fall, but it seemed he hadn't been hit as hard as some of his neighbours.

In a social media post on Tuesday, ATCO Electric Yukon said Tagish residents in the California Beach area would have power later that afternoon and residents in the Taku area would have power restored by 10 p.m. Customers on Penny Cook Lane would continue to be without power on Tuesday night.

Nobody from ATCO Electric Yukon responded to calls from CBC News on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, another potentially severe storm was expected to hit the region on Tuesday evening. A severe thunderstorm watch issued by Environment Canada for Whitehorse, Carcross, and Haines Junction cites the potential for things such as "large hail, damaging winds, torrential rainfall."