"It's up to me to decide if there has to be an evacuation," said Dillon, emergency management coordinator for the Ponoka Stampede. Even as the storm toppled trees and tore shingles from roofs in north Ponoka, Dillon said the stampede crowd stayed dry. As storm clouds began to swirl over the town of Ponoka Thursday evening, Ted Dillon says he watched tensely from the local stampede ground. About 10,000 people travel to Ponoka each year for the town's annual stampede, one of the biggest in Alberta. "I can't even really process it right now," said Shelly Dedio, who watched the funnel cloud from south Ponoka.

Source: CBC News July 02, 2016 03:11 UTC