BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1019 Report

It has been a little more than a year since that day when Daniel Gelinas felt the winds pick up violently around his house in Très St. Rédempteur. It was not normal. Then, he spotted a piece of tin fly through the air.

It was the last Monday in May 2024. With tree limbs cracking, debris swirling in a darkened sky, he grabbed his dog, opened the trap door in the floor of his old Canadiana-style farmhouse that gave access to the cellar, dropped the canine in and jumped down himself. By the time he hit the floor, the whole thing was over.

The winds calmed, almost immediately, but the dust-up caused by what was described as “30 seconds of mayhem” continue to swirl in the lives of Gelinas and his wife, Julie Asselstine.

The storm that blew through their lives made meteorological history. It was the first reported tornado to have touched down in this rural stretch of Vaudreuil-Soulanges. As reporters and camera crews found their way to this quiet little town of fewer than 1,000 residents near the Ontario border the next day to assess the damage, Gelinas and Asselstine collected their thoughts as they, too, took in the devastation that marked the twister’s path.

The roof of the old farmhouse they had bought as their retirement home was torn from its rafters. The two large willow trees that framed the old home that was built in 1868 were splintered. The gazebo behind their house was destroyed, with sections of it strewn across the street, while its lounge furniture was still visible, wedged high overhead in a nearby tree. The shed the couple had planned to take down was left half standing, tattered and twisted by the violent winds.  

A little over a year later, the scene is very different.

When asked what the last year has been like for the couple, they hesitate. They smile at each other, seemingly searching for where to begin.

“It was so intense — every day,” said Asselstine.

They faced a whirlwind of decisions. And it started with trying to figure out what to do, how to do it and where to start. And keep their wits about them. That is the year they have had.

Today, their house looks very different. The shape, the colour, the height, the style, the finishings — it’s all distinctly changed.

The damage forced the couple to basically rebuild it. As Gelinas explained, insurance covered the cost of replacing the roof and much of the upper storey of the old farmhouse, but a structural engineer told them the home’s original stone foundation had to be replaced. They had to find a budget for that.

A new foundation meant the house had to be raised. A new roof, meant the upper level had to be reconfigured. But the middle part of the original structure is still part of the new building.

As the renovations progressed, other issues had to be addressed — rot found behind the cladding in one wall, they always planned to add an extension as they needed more room, the list went on.

“We were forced to do a lot of stuff right away – what we were going to do over five and 10 years,” Gelinas said, explaining how he viewed their approach.

“We were hit with a tornado, so go big or go home,” is how Asselstine described it.

How they characterized the process of getting through it all, however, was similar: It was a life-changing ordeal that today they are surprisingly grateful for. Yet, they admit there were a few moments that brought them to tears and tested them to their core.

They are pleased with their new home, and point to the improvements made to the property they purchased in 2020 as they planned for their retirement — like the new building that replaced the old shed that was destroyed. It houses the gym Gelinas always wanted, complete with a cedar-lined sauna and office space for Asselstine on the second storey. They also point to parts of a willow tree destroyed by the wind that now sits by their front fence waiting to be picked up. They have engaged a furniture maker to transform it into a dining room table for their new home, a memento of sorts, of the storm’s damage.

The renovations continue, but the bulk of the work is done.

“It was a heck of a challenge,” Gelinas said, as he looked at Asselstine. They smile at each other, and their eyes scan their property, seemingly searching for how to describe it in more detail, but settle to let a brief silence sit.

Those “30 seconds of mayhem” on a Monday in May 2024: “We constantly say it was a gift, honestly,” Asselstine finally says.