Tornado cuts 3-mile-long path in Eagle Lake
5/29/09 | 14 comments

Tornado cuts 3-mile-long path in Eagle Lake


By Julia Bayly
Special to the NEWS
PHOTO COURTESY OF SUSAN TARDIE
A tornado that touched down in Eagle Lake on Sunday brought hail and toppled trees, including these that spared statuary in the Catholic cemetery.

EAGLE LAKE, Maine — It’s official. The storm that blew through this northern Maine town Sunday has been declared an EF-1 tornado by the National Weather Service office in Caribou.

“We marry up a bunch of data to determine a tornado,” Hendricus Lulofs, meteorologist in charge at the Caribou NWS, said Thursday afternoon. “The survey team reviewed the radar data, the recorded wind flow and talked with eyewitnesses.”

When the NWS survey team visited the Eagle Lake area on Tuesday, it found a path of destruction roughly 3.2 miles long and averaging 100 yards wide.

“It’s that length versus width that indicated tornado rather than straight-line winds,” Lulofs said. “It snapped trees, uprooted trees, and the way the trees were laying down in different directions [also] indicated a tornado.”

Lulofs said the tornado had maximum winds of 110 mph.

While not common in Maine, an average of two or three such events occur each year, mostly in the southern and western parts of the state, Lulofs said.

In the Eagle Lake event, the survey team determined the tornado first touched down near the Pinette Brook Crossing around 2:15 p.m. Sunday, and was on the ground intermittently as it followed a southeast track, crossing Convent Road, Duprey Road and Route 11.

No injuries were reported but along its path the storm destroyed hundreds of trees, an outbuilding, a transport trailer and a boat.

At the town’s Catholic cemetery, large trees were uprooted and toppled onto several pieces of statuary, which miraculously escaped serious damage.

Susan Tardie, a native of Winterville, was at her family’s camp on St. Froid Lake when the storm came through Sunday.

“It was sunny and all of a sudden it started hailing,” Tardie said Thursday. “At first I thought it was someone outside trying to get my attention and then I saw the hail.”

Soon afterward, a relative came to alert the family of the storm’s passing.

Tardie said she feels very fortunate after seeing firsthand the damage at the cemetery as she and several family members had spent the previous day that Memorial Day weekend attending to relatives’ graves.

“Thank goodness we were not there when that storm hit,” Tardie said. “But it was very emotional standing there the next day with other people and looking at the damage.”

The last official tornado in northern Maine was on July 24, 2001, in Oakfield.

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Comments
14 comments on this item
On 5/28/09 at 9:41 PM, blueskiesaboveme wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

That is a pretty cool picture, strange things at work. God bless.

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On 5/28/09 at 11:15 PM, Elizabethann wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

That is nothing. Go to the site www.sjvalley-times.com ...it is a miracle....

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On 5/28/09 at 11:18 PM, Elizabethann wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Click on the picture of the over turned trailer bed...See how the trees fell around the statues...

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On 5/29/09 at 8:09 AM, kateindfcity wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Tornadoes are tricky like that, that's why people get killed or don't reach a safe area in their house in time. It can go from sunny out to bad in a half a minute or less. With this weather, people need to be aware of what to do when a tornado is around and where to go in your house, especially if you don't have a basement. Trust me, I lived in Mississippi and Virginia when I was younger and this stuff was like instinct to us because they ingrain it into your brain when you're in school.

http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/edu/safety/tornadoguide.html

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On 5/29/09 at 8:30 AM, southtexaskate wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

we were on our way back from madawaska when we went by the church that day. it was scary to see the trees toppled down. thankfully where we live in winterville nothing happend while we were gone, and thankfully no one was hurt.

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On 5/29/09 at 8:36 AM, Elizabethann wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Go to the web site I posted. New pics were put up yesterday. That is unbelievable. Someone said that big tree in front of the statue kneeling the tree had actually touched the statue. They could tell by looking at the statue but it remained unbroken.

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On 5/29/09 at 8:50 AM, PabMainer wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Elizabethann thanks for the link to the pics....wow they are incredible....hard to imagine being in the areas where storms do this to entire communities...We do see storms like this in different areas of our state at times but are usually pretty localized and not as widespread as this one just over 3 miles long...it's interesting that when this happens for an area of a few hundred yards they just call them "micro bursts".....

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On 5/30/09 at 9:29 AM, frenchloprabbitz wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Elizabethann it is a miracle no one was hurt.

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On 5/30/09 at 9:37 PM, spunky wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Elizabethann.............Thank you for the link, the pictures there are awesome. Its amazing how they landed around the statues. Thank you once again it truly was a miracle.

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On 5/31/09 at 6:26 PM, Elizabethann wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

We need to see miracles in our lives. God allows them so that we may have an increase in faith. Glad you enjoyed the link. Keep the faith....

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On 5/31/09 at 7:09 PM, karenlite wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

6:26 PM, Elizabethann, I so agree with you.. There are miracles

everyday for everyone to see, we must pause and be thankful

for them and for the miracles to come.

When I saw the pic above, of the trees down between the praying

figures and the lamb, I thought of it as a sign of miracles that

continue to happen.

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On 6/2/09 at 8:59 PM, MikeinNC wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

A tornado is an act of god right? So god causes a devastating storm, but saves a few statues, and it is a miracle! LOL! If there is a god, why does he cause devastating storms like this anyway, just so he can be a hero with his "miracles".

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On 6/4/09 at 12:43 AM, lonesome wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

i am very thankful no one was hurt it was bad enough for the danage that was done ....i had been through the tornado that was in oakfield in 01.....i had just left the community building after listening to country music witch is usually held every tues. night and it took 1 car and lifted it off the ground and landed on its roof just behind 2 cars with 4 teenagers in it alll 3 cars were totalled and only minor injories to the teens ....a little bit of property damage was done thank god it was no worse than what was done.....

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On 6/4/09 at 12:49 AM, lonesome wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

misspelled damage andall totaled i guess i spelled them right this time i hope

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