Found Festival and Whyte Avenue Artwalk weather Friday's violent storm with minor damage

When a grey-green wall of clouds approached Found Festival in Old Strathcona on Friday evening, all eight crew members clung to a 300-square-foot pavilion tent, fighting to keep it from becoming airborne. "It was all hands on deck trying to save as much as we could," said Mac Brock, the arts festival's managing producer.

One technician, Mike Tully, cut through the chaos with a directive: "Forget the tents, get the equipment in the truck!" The crew huddled in the back of a truck until the storm passed, managing to protect the festival's sound equipment. Another of their venues hosting a theatre production flooded, but organizers got all performers and audience members upstairs, where they completed a reading of the show on the main floor.

Next door at Whyte Avenue Artwalk in McIntyre Park, producer Jill Roszell and a handful of security guards were wrapping up when a strong downward gust hit. She watched a traffic light at 104 Street and 83 Avenue buckle into the roadway. "It just all came down," she said. "It looked like a movie."

About nine of the 40 to 50 tents kept at the park overnight suffered damage. Some artists who lived further south had no idea the storm was happening and had to be brought back to the site. Painter Lori Frank was among those picking up the pieces Saturday. "We were trying to assemble piles of things — tent walls here, weights there, and grids. It was pretty shocking, but bottom line is nobody was hurt." Both festivals reopened Saturday, with Whyte Avenue Artwalk running through Sunday.

Telus World of Science, located nearby, fared worse. The building began taking on water around 7:40 p.m. Friday, forcing an evacuation. The flooding was "extensive," prompting the centre to close until further notice, said president and CEO Constance Scarlett.