Sifto salt mine office damaged by F3 tornado. File photo.
HEATHER BOA Bullet News GODERICH – Normand Laberge radioed his supervisor from the cab of the ship loader at Goderich harbour to say he could see a storm at the breakwall and wanted to shut down, a coroner’s inquest heard today.
At least one other worker on the skeleton staff on that Sunday shift on Aug. 21, 2011 to load a boat heard the request and subsequent acknowledgement from operations supervisor Paul Kent on the shared radio system, and that’s the last time they heard the voice of Laberge, who was located in a cab mid-way up a loader through which salt is conveyed from a storage dome to containers on a ship.
Coroner Dr. Rick Mann and a five-member jury heard from a number of mine workers, emergency personnel and medical staff on how events unfolded when an F3 tornado from storm cells that made their way from Lake Michigan across Lake Huron hit the shoreline at Goderich shortly before 4 p.m., killing the veteran Sifto salt mine worker and causing extensive damage to the mine’s above ground operations.
After it passed, Kent crawled out from under his desk and did a radio check of his 11 men working on the surface. Laberge did not respond. Colin Chisolm, who had ducked his front end loader behind a 12-foot concrete wall in Dome 4, joined others who drove their equipment toward the spot where Laberge was last working. He used the front end loader to lift a utility pole and pull taut a downed hydro wire so paramedics could get to an injured security guard who was working from a 12-foot trailer. They made a path toward the vicinity of the ship loader along the dock for paramedics and others who began to show up, like police, firefighters, mine rescue workers and off-duty employees.
Tristan Barter, a Huron County paramedic, was on the second crew from the county’s EMS to arrive on scene. He said the call came in to 9-1-1 just after 5 p.m., and they were dispatched at 6:20 p.m., already working their way through “mass destruction” in Goderich’s downtown. They arrived on the scene just over four minutes later. He donned protective gear and was joined by an engineer and an OPP officer to crawl through debris into the ruined cab where Laberge was trapped by several pieces of steel, lying face down. Although Barter couldn’t reach Laberge, he could see most of him.
“In my opinion, I determined at that time that the injuries sustained were not compatible with life,” said Barter, who called the base hospital in Owen Sound to confirm a field pronouncement of death at 6:49 p.m. on Aug. 21, 2011.
Teresa Donnelly, who represents the public interests and acts as legal adviser to the coroner, used photos taken by Det.-Const. Phillip Hordijk on Aug. 21 and 22 to help guide the jury through witness testimony.
The coroner’s inquest also heard from pathologist Dr. John Vetters who conducted a post-mortem two days later and determined that in his opinion Laberge, 61, died of multiple injuries and a severed spinal cord. He said the man would not have survived his injuries, even with quicker medical response.
Geoff Coulson, a warning preparedness meteorologist for Environment Canada, presented a detailed PowerPoint presentation that outlined the types of public notices issued and how the public can receive that information. He explained that meteorologists watched the thunderstorm’s development and when they saw signs of “significant rotation on multiple levels” on the radar at 3:30 p.m., they decided to issue a marine tornado issue. By 3:38 p.m., they posted a tornado warning under the marine warning category on Environment Canada’s website and issued the warning to the Canadian Coast Guard in Sarnia, which broadcast on Radio 16, the weather channel for boaters. At 3:48 p.m., they posted a tornado warning under the public warning category on the website, to media, through the RSS news feed, and on the weather radio station, where it is also accompanied by a piercing warning beep.
Coulson said the tornado struck Goderich at approximately 3:55 p.m.
He said the tornado was rare for two reasons: it was the first F3 tornado in the province in 15 years and it intensified as it crossed the lake.
“In my experience, I have never heard of an Fujita Scale 3 tornado coming off the Great Lake, coming onshore,” said Coulson, whose career has spanned nearly 30 years. “The lakes themselves tend to be a little bit cooler than the surrounding air and what these storms need is warm, moist air to survive. As it crosses the lake, it tends to encounter cooler air and it tends to knock the stuffing out of a lot of these storms.”
People who have special interest in the coroner’s inquest and have been granted special standing also asked questions of the witnesses. Special standing was granted to: the family Normand Laberge, who are represented by his daughter Jocelyne Laberge; Emergency Measures Ontario, which has an interest in the public warning system, represented by counsel Brian Whitehead; Sifto Canada Corp., which operates the workplace and employed Laberge, represented by Rosalind Cooper of Fasken Martineau; Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, Local 16-O, the union representing workers at the mine, represented by president Lionel Carter.
In an address to the jury before the start of proceedings, Mann told the five members their job will be to answer five questions: who the decreased was, and how, when, where and by what means the deceased came to his death. He also encouraged them to make recommendations to prevent future deaths.
He told the jury members they are the “triers of facts” and although they do not need to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, the evidence needs to pass the “balance of probabilities test.” As well, findings do not have to be unanimous.
The inquest is expected to last five days.
