A tornado came through while we were away.

According to Murray, the tornado began as three small twisters that merged into one big one right before his eyes. Sunday afternoon, July 28th, around four O'clock. Hot and muggy with shifty air and edgy skies. He and Mike grabbed his wife, Ann-Marie, a polio survivor who can't walk very well let alone run, and carried her to the basement of the marina house as the legendary freight train sound smothered in around them. It passed 100 yards North of the marina, leaped into the lake crossing between Oak Island and our place, Rebel’s Isle, made a turn and slammed the far shore hurling trees onto cottages, snapping huge moonraker pines right in half and dropping the top halves several yards from their broken spikes. According to Peter who watched it come right at them from across the lake, it was fully formed over Stoney Lake, black with debris whirling hundreds of feet in the air before it arrived at Kasshabog's shore, spawned another twister, perhaps two, and then reformed as it crossed the water's edge. It disappeared momentarily and then re-emerged as a water spout seventy five feet at it's base and hundreds of feet tall. He watched and took photos as it passed directly between Rebel and Oak heading straight at him. The rest of the family were down in the most sheltered place they could find. Peter, an ocean sailor who has weathered hurricanes and a tornado at sea remained up top, enthralled. Finally his nerve gave out, or he came to his senses and joined them as the twister hit just up the shore with that sound of the freight train going by at high speed. One little niece was seen, but not heard screaming. The other chewed the button on her shirt and kept her head down and her eyes closed. When it was gone it was quiet except for the sound of the storm surge as the lake sloshed from one side to the other like a shallow bowl of soup. The storm cut a swath through the forest to the waters edge 150 yards wide where we could see it from the road and from the water on both sides of the lake. As we left for home today we could see turkey vultures circling over something out of sight in the forest. As the luck of these things runs, it passed within two hundred yards of Rebel leaving only a fallen branch or two, and one pine bow caught like an arm in a hammer lock under the eaves. No damage. All told, it was a good weekend to have been somewhere else.