PHOTOS: Osoyoos and area besieged by crushing Wednesday windstorm

The Okanagan border town of Osoyoos was battered Wednesday afternoon by a short-lived but vicious windstorm that some residents equated to a "tornado."

The worst of the storm apparently lasted no longer than a few minutes, according to three residents and an Osoyoos public works employee PentictonNow spoke with, in person, less than an hour after the event.

Yet the damage was considerable. All over town and into the RDOS land that surrounds it, massive trees and their root systems were ripped from the ground, branches were strewn about like matchsticks, and utility lines were downed.

Several neighbourhoods were without power. Traffic blockages were common. Many rooftops were damaged.

A particularly large tree that fell across Hwy 97 near 122nd Ave. blocked the thoroughfare entirely for a minimum of two hours. Firefighters played the role of traffic flag people.

Damage seemed especially potent northwest of the town boundary, along the Hwy 97 corridor.

Regan Pain, a resident of 87 St., said it was "definitely a tornado or a whirlwind – one or the other."

Pain was in his vehicle as the storm hit.

"I was in my vehicle and it was just shaking," he said, "and I happened to look out the back window and saw a few raindrops. And then all of a sudden the wind got wild and it was here."

According to Pain, "a half-dozen or more big trees by the lake were snapped in half."

But, he added, it disappeared just as quickly as it appeared.

"I thought we were about to get round two, but it suddenly lifted and went over Anarchist Mountain."

Neighbour Debbie Billows called it "crazy."

"I was inside and I just felt the rain hitting the building," she said. "And then the wind was phenomenal. I didn’t dare step outside. It was safer inside.

"It lifted a paddle board over our house, over the swimming pool and over the far fence."

Billows believes the event rates second only to a full-blown hurricane she experienced in Mexico.

"For this area, I've never felt anything this bad," she said. Though she agreed with Pain that it was over in a matter of minutes.

"Five, maybe six top," she said.

Just down the street, an anonymous resident took a break from directing traffic past fallen trees to tell us the storm had picked up a camper stored in her driveway and moved it to a new position.

"It felt just like a tornado," she said.

A public works employee clearing a roadway said there was little warning of the oncoming carnage, adding that "we all got phone calls and were told to come back to work."

The official Environment Canada forecast for Thursday in Osoyoos calls for "increasing cloudiness" and winds from the south at 30 km/h, gusting to 60. The temperature will top out at 18.