🌪️🌳 "I thought I was in a tornado!" Massive winds in #Sundre crush a Jeep but spare lives. You won't believe this close call! 😱 #Olds #Alberta #CrazyWeather #LuckyToBeAlive
Sudden Winds Leave Sundre Residents Counting Their Blessings
Sundre – In the early hours of a seemingly peaceful Tuesday morning, a massive gust of wind upended the lives of a local family in Sundre, Alberta. Daris Kieley and her mother, Lorrie Hamilton, woke to a shocking sight: a large tree had crashed down onto their property, crushing a Jeep but miraculously sparing them from harm.
Around 4 a.m. on August 20, fierce winds of up to 75 kilometers per hour swept through the area, catching many residents by surprise. Kieley, who was sleeping in a holiday trailer on her mother's property, was abruptly awakened by the sound of a loud crack.
"I woke up at 4 a.m. and heard the crack of a tree," Kieley recalled. "And right away, I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t want to be in this yard full of trees.’” The darkness made it difficult to see what had happened, but she sensed something was terribly wrong.
A Moment of Panic and Relief
In the near-blackness of the early morning, Kieley struggled to make sense of the situation. "It was super windy," she said. "The trees were swaying in circles, not back and forth. I thought, ‘I’m in a tornado – I don’t know what’s going on. I need to get to the house.’”
Once inside her mother’s house, she looked out the back door and saw the full extent of the damage: a giant tree had come crashing down, landing squarely on her mother’s Jeep. "If that tree had gone in a different direction, I would’ve been crushed, or it could have landed on Mom's bedroom," Kieley said, visibly relieved. "We were lucky it just took out the Jeep."
Hamilton, who has lived in Sundre since 2014, slept through the whole ordeal. "It was more Daris’s experience," she admitted. "I woke up around 5 a.m., came out of my bedroom, and saw Daris in the house. She was too scared to stay outside."
When Kieley told her a tree had fallen on her Jeep, Hamilton didn't believe it at first. But a glance out the back door confirmed the startling news. "There was this big, huge tree on my Jeep," Hamilton recounted. "I went into shock mode. It could have landed the other way and killed my daughter. I just felt so blessed."
A Close Call on a Significant Day
As fate would have it, August 20 was also the birthday of Kieley’s late nephew, Adam Cripps, who had passed away at the age of 16 after a battle with cancer. "We feel he was looking out for us," Hamilton shared, her voice thick with emotion. "Is it a coincidence that it happened on Adam’s birthday? We have our boy in heaven watching over us."
The storm's intensity, recorded by a weather station at the Sundre Airport, showed a dramatic shift in wind speeds between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., with gusts reaching 73 kilometers per hour. By 5 a.m., the winds had significantly subsided.
Reflecting on the event, Kieley expressed a sense of gratitude and wonder. “Every time I come out here, I just keep looking at this stump, thinking, ‘Oh my God. Man, I’m lucky.’”
While she remains unsure about divine intervention, she admitted, “I couldn’t help but feel that somebody was watching over us.”
For updates on local weather conditions, visit weather.gc.ca.