Tornado rips through campground north of Montreal

Flipped vehicles, downed power lines, snapped treesandgazebos tossed aroundlike backyard playsets are now being cleared by Quebecerswho found themselves in a tornado's path Thursday evening.

Robert Desnoyersand his wife Ginette Corbeilare among those who suffered propertydamage at Camping Horizon, about 50 kilometres north ofMontreal.

"Hang onto your shorts, it got real windy in 10 to 15 seconds trees came down,"Desnoyerssaid.

Friday morning,Desnoyers, 74,was hard at work clearing branches off his wife's car.

"It got pretty real last night," he said.

The couplecame to the area in thespring, built a deckand bought a new$1,800 gazebo that they put together.

But now they said they have to start over because of the mess left by the tornado includinga neighbour's gazebo endingup on top of theirs and bending it.

Winds up to 175 km/hr

After investigating this morning,Environment Canada concluded the violent storm was, in fact, an EF-1tornado, with winds up to175 km/hr.

According to the weather agency, the tornadowas about 200 metres in diameter and tore through the Lanaudire region at around 6:30 p.m.

Hours before the storm swept through the southern part of the province, the weather agency already knew all the ingredients were present to cause atornado heat, humidityand "lifting" caused by a cold front.

At the storm'sheight, more than 100,000 Hydro-Qubec customers were without electricity. By noon Friday, that number had gone down toabout 14,000.

More than 50 teams worked to restore power Thursday evening, and others were added during the night.

Dozens of trailers damaged

Residents at the campground are considering themselves lucky that so few of them were injured.

Most of them had emptied out of the campsite before the storm hit so they could attend a public consultation about a small airport being planned in the region.

Phone calls started coming in about the devastation at their homes,and they left the meeting to check things out.

"Trailers flipped over, trees came down," said Alexandre Caron, the owner of Camping Horizon. He said he hasseen strong winds before, but never like this.

Roughly 40 trailers on the property were damaged.

"We were scared when we saw that. We were lucky, despite it all," said campground resident France Girard.

There was only one injury at the campground a man who was in his trailer during the storm sustained an ankle injury and was taken to hospital.

Caron said there may have been more injuries if most of the residents hadn't been at the meeting.

He said when Hydro-Qubecfully restores power to the area, they'll "be up and running."

"We're going to put our gloves on and start cleaning up."

According to Environment Canada, tornados aren't exceptional at this time of year half a dozen hit Quebec annually, with July being the biggest month.