Wind gust levels building

Photo: Contributed

A two-storey building under construction in Silver Creek was knocked off of a concrete pad during a sudden wind burst Tuesday afternoon.

The homeowner described a "twister" that came down from the hill and turned right up their driveway through the building under construction between 2 and 3 p.m.

"It was like magic," the homeowner said. "It was no more than three minutes. It came racing down the driveway, it touched down, it hit the two-storey building and lifted it six feet off of the ground and shifted it about 15 feet forward and smashed it flat."

"My husband was building a shop with a suite over the top. Out of nowhere, there was no breeze in the air, the twister came from behind the west side of the mountain over the hill, straight down our driveway and straight through the building," she said.

The woman said her husband was smoothing cement near the structure when the incident happened.

"That's what saved him and the guy helping him. If it weren't for the cement they would have been inside the building," she said.

Environment Canada's Doug Lundquist said it is very unlikely that it was a tornado, as satellite and radar imagery from that time of day showed little activity.

"I checked the radar and it was really a stable day so there's not a chance there was a tornado around there," Lundquist said. "We looked and there was no lightning and no thunderstorms in the area."

"There could have been a rotation on a wind. There was a bit of wind in Kamloops. We had gusts of 45 km/h which is in no way unusual, and it usually doesn't cause damage," Lundquist said. "It was probably wind and there was swirling with the wind."

Photo: Contributed

Photo: Contributed