After the storm: Christie Lake-area barn flattened, but house untouched

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Derrek and Mackayla Brady realized that the storm barreling towards their farm near Christie Lake on Wednesday evening was something out of the ordinary by its sound.

It had been eerily calm. They had just put their sons, four months and 20 months old, to bed. Derrek went outside. Then there was a sound like a freight train.

“It was like a load roar,” Derrek says. “A constant, steady rumble.”

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Derrek grabbed his cellphone at 7:31 p.m. and started to record as the clouds and a heavy veil of water approached. The couple ran upstairs to get their sons and sheltered under a stairway.

Their border collie, Bear, was hot on their heels, screaming, MacKayla says.

“By the time we got downstairs, it was all done. It was over,” Derrek says.

The cleanup has started, but the couple is still in awe of the quirky force of nature that demolished their barn, but left their house untouched.

“Well, it was bad. You get sick to your stomach. But, when I turned around and saw the house was still standing and your family is still healthy … That’s all that really mattered,” Derrek says.

Environment Canada has confirmed a tornado strike seven kilometres from Perth. Warnings had been issued for Smiths Falls, Perth, eastern Lanark County, Westport, Charleston Lake, Merrickville-Wolford-Kemptville.

There had been a tornado warning earlier Wednesday, the Bradys say, but they would not receive another until 7:37 p.m., after the storm has passed, levelling an L-shaped wood barn that had withstood a previous century’s worth of storms.

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Wednesday’s storm ripped strips of metal from the barn roof. Some of the crumpled roofing was deposited a few hundred feet away. Other crumpled pieces were deposited a few hundred feet in the opposite direction. Some of the hardwood beams were unbroken. Other beams had splintered.

One of the metal lightning rods that had topped the barn fell near the scene of the destruction. Its top, a ceramic ball, had fallen a few hundred feet away, still intact.

“The buildings moved in two different directions,” says Derrek, who did not see a funnel cloud.

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Meanwhile, the family’s house, less than 50 metres away, was undamaged. The only sign that a storm had passed were some small branches on the roof. Four horses in a pasture just beside the barn appeared unfazed.

“Their water is in the barn. They were smart enough to be outside. I guess they knew something was coming,” Derrek says.

“There weren’t words,” Mackayla says. “Derrek immediately went to make sure all of our neighbours were OK.”

While there were some trees down nearby, there was no other major damage.

The Bradys, who bought the farm in 2020, say they’ll be looking to rebuild their barn. But it will be difficult to replace it.

“It’s kind of a work of art,” Derrek says. “We were slowly in the process, as money trickled in, to make it our own.

“Last summer, we nailed down a bunch of tin on the roof. I like to think maybe that’s the stuff that stayed together.”

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