Tornado Rips Through Fergus

Tornado confirmed

"We've confirmed at this location a Fujita scale F2 tornado occurred, with winds between 180 to 240 kilometres an hour," said Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson. "That's confirmed with the damage that we've witnessed."

Damaged shed and trees after tornados of August 19, 2005

Links to more TV and newspaper reports

Many people may turn to this website for news and information about the tornado that hit Fergus, Ontario on Friday August 19, 2005.

Since we are not a newspaper we will not be providing our own report on the situation. Instead, we have gathered a selection of reports from other sources: newspapers and TV channels.

Picture of uprooted trees from the tornado
You can still see many uprooted trees in Fergus.

TV coverage, including eyewitness reports of local residents (all links open in a new window):

CTV News:
With several video feeds. Recommended movie files:
- "Denelle Balfour on the aftermath"
  - where the tornado is still being referred to as "at least one funnel cloud with tornado-force winds" (shortly after it happened)
- "Michael Melling on the tornado aftermath"
  - a little later
CH News: [link http://www.canada.com/toronto/video/081905ch.html no longer available]
("It's a scene I've never seen before...")
NOTE: This movie requires the latest version of the Real Audio plug-in. Download instructions can be found on the CH News page itself.

Written articles on the twister:

The Fountain Pen (Centre Wellington edition): Photo essay of tornado
CTV News: Southern Ontario town cleaning up after tornado
A storm chaser's report

No longer available, or turned into paid articles:

Toronto Sun: Tornado slaps Fergus [turned into a paid article now]
London Free Press: Region begins storm cleanup [turned into a paid article now]
The National Post: Storms ravage southern Ontario (with the beforementioned video from CH News) [link http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/toronto/story.html?id=b8d5737e-f859-4707-a33a-0d240fca5a87 no longer available April 2006]

Request: inform us

These links worked on the day they were placed on this page. But since then the articles may have been moved. Could you please inform us if they have?

More local news

January 2006: The Wellington Advertiser still has some coverage on its website about the tornado that hit Centre Wellington in 2005. Just search the site for "tornado" and you will receive many articles on the subject. More on www.wellingtonadvertiser.com (link opens a new window) .

The Fergus Elora News Express does not seem to keep an online archive of articles.