The tornado had only visited Regina for
five or six minutes but what havoc it had wrought. As it passed by houses were
toppled, windows smashed and debris was deposited all around. The low pressure
at the centre of the funnel cloud created a vacuum that caused many of the
homes to explode taking out their windows and lifting off their roofs.
Public buildings were also damaged. One of
the more spectacular of these was the telephone exchange which lost its roof
and a wall and whose weighty switchboard crashed down through the floor into
the basement taking three switchboard operators with it. In his book about the
tornado Frank Anderson told the tale of refugees from the telephone exchange
trying to convince the newspapermen at the Leader to come to the rescue.
Even though the newspaper building was a few blocks away, they were not aware
of the destructive tornado that had passed by a few blocks away.
There were tales of miraculous escapes and
tragic deaths. Although newspaper reports had initially put it higher, the
death toll was 28 with another 200 injured and 2500 homeless. More would die of
their injuries in the days that followed.
People in front of damaged house
City of Regina Archives Photograph Collection, CORA-B-1033
Sources
Anderson, Frank (1980). Regina's
Terrible Tornado, June 30, 1912. Surrey, BC, Heritage House Publishing
Company
Bingaman, Sandra (2011). Storm of the
Century: The Regina Tornado of 1912. Regina, Saskatchewan: Canadian Plains
Research Center Press
Looker, Janet (2000). Disaster Canada. Toronto,
Ontario: Lynx Images Inc.
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