Waldeck Plow Winds Cause Damage

Thursday night's plow wind storm left behind quite a bit of carnage for the Waldeck area.

Emergency services were called to the scene as plow winds derailed over 30 train cars, uprooted trees, and left a substantial amount of damage to buildings.

Waldeck resident Dave Funk tells us about the storm.

"It was pretty scary, it's just a roaring sound. There's tree branches, big tree branches, going horizontally across the yard hitting the window. You're afraid the windows are going to smash, and it was starting to hail as well. We came out and we saw 50 foot trees that were downed. Trees that are 3 feet across, just snapped and twisted off. There were trees down all over our yard and on top of some of our buildings. Luckily, our house was not damaged."

Funk went on to explain the night he had.

"We're a quarter mile north of the train. The CP crews started clearing up the damage and the wreckage probably around midnight, so there was half a dozen of these huge spotlights and eight or nine cranes and other huge pieces of equipment rumbling back and forth tossing train cars left and right of the track, so they can repair the track and get it operational. Sleep was not very restful."

Funk adds in the 20 years he has lived on the property he has never experienced this amount of damage. 

"The officials say that it was a plow wind, but I suspect there was a small tornado involved because we have some elm trees that got broken as well, and they are very hard wood, and they are twisted. It looked like someone just twisted them with their fingers, and twisted  them right off," said Funk.

The Canadian Pacific railway is reporting the cause of the derailment was due to the extreme weather.

The tracks are now fixed and the first train car was up and running at around 2pm on Friday.