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B4
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CENTRAL ALBERTA’S DAILY NEWSPAPER
BREAKING NEWS ONLINE AT WWW.REDDEERADVOCATE.COM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2013
When Hail Attacks
Woman lost in bush escaped assault BY THE CANADIAN PRESS
Photos contributed by PYRAMID PRODUCTIONS Inc.
Stills from the one-hour documentary, ‘When Hail Attacks,’ which airs on CBC television at 7 p.m. on Saturday.
DOCUMENTARY LOOKS AT WHY THERE’S MORE HAIL IN CENTRAL ALBERTA THAN ANY OTHER REGION IN THE WORLD AND HOW CLOUD SEEDING IS REDUCING THE DAMAGE BY SUSAN ZIELINSKI ADVOCATE STAFF When Central Alberta isn’t buried under snow, it’s probably being pelted with hail. That’s what happens when you live in Alberta’s hail belt. “There’s more hail in Central Alberta than any other region in the world,” said Larry Day, president of Pyramid Productions Inc., of Calgary, on Tuesday. The hail belt stretches from north of Red Deer to south of Calgary, east to Medicine Hat and west to the foothills. “That’s where the intensity really is, it’s in that belt.
Some place, almost every day through the summer somewhere, it’s hailing.” Day produced and directed a one-hour documentary, When Hail Attacks, that airs on CBC television at 7 p.m. on Saturday. His research showed no one has died due to hail in the region, which has happened a few times during freak storms in other countries. But livestock has been killed in Central Alberta, he said. “We get the most hail in the world. We don’t necessarily get the biggest.” The documentary looks at why the region gets so much
hail and how cloud seeding, using a small fleet of twoengine aircraft, reduces hail damage. “Pilots fly into cloud formations of major thunderstorms, sometimes they’re already pretty violent, and they seed a chemical silver iodide into the clouds. The theory is by putting these little pellets into the clouds they convince the clouds to make more smallsized hail stones and fewer large hail stones. “If they get it just right, they turn the hail into rain or at least pea-sized hail that doesn’t do very much damage.”
Cloud seeding, financed by the insurance industry, started in the 1970s and is now done for Red Deer, Calgary and communities in between. Day said it used to be done in rural areas to protect crops and farmers favour a return to cloud seeding. The documentary asks whether cloud seeding damages the environment. If not, should farmers also benefit. “In a normal year (hail) is the most costly severe weather in Canada. It’s more costly than tornadoes or hurricanes or even floods.”
ROCKY MOUNTAIN HOUSE — Mounties believe a woman who escaped a sex attack on a rural road ran into the bush to hide but became lost for 12 days. The 25-year-old from the O’Chiese First Nation was discovered on Friday wandering in a remote area near Rocky Mountain House. She remains in hospital with a broken jaw and infected cuts, said Cpl. Nick Munro. “She was suffering from exposure, may have been mildly concussed from the altercation — not in great shape,” he said Tuesday. He explained that police and search-andrescue volunteers began looking for the woman after her mother reported her missing. Despite her injured jaw, and through garbled speech, she was able to briefly talk about the ordeal with investigators, and to identify her alleged attacker. “We’re going to do a more in-depth interview once she’s recovered and had a chance to settle down.”
See ASSAULT on Page A2 Please see HAIL on Page A2
Church tagged in graffiti incident Cruise Night the place for area car lovers BY SUSAN ZIELINSKI ADVOCATE STAFF
Deer Park Alliance Church in Red Deer is the latest church requiring graffiti removal. The north side of the church, a nearby fence and shed on the property were all tagged Sunday night. TerryLee Ropchan, executive director of Central Alberta Crime Prevention Centre, said large buildings walls, like a church or school, are as seen as bigger canvases. “Typically, if there isn’t a lot of lighting on the building in the evening hours that’s a place for them to work unnoticed,” Ropchan said on Tuesday. Recently she also saw a small amount of graffiti at Holy Family School, also in Deer Park. “In most instances, the graffiti isn’t big works of art that take a lot of time. They’re just kind of walking by, it takes 15 seconds. (Paint) can back in the pocket, and away they go.” She said people have noticed a general increase in graffiti in Red Deer, but Central Alberta Crime Prevention Centre plans to scub the paint away, with the help of 60 vol-
PLEASE RECYCLE
BY PAUL COWLEY ADVOCATE STAFF
Photo by JEFF STOKOE/Advocate staff
The fence behind the Deer Park Alliance Church in Red Deer has been tagged with graffiti. unteers, on Aug. 24 at least in the downtown. “We’re going to do a big sweep through the downtown core on that Saturday afternoon and get all the graffiti. Just kind of really clean it up before the fall and winter sets in.” Ropchan said if the sweep goes well, more will be planned for next year in different parts of the city because the spray painting happens ev-
erywhere. The centre also has a youth action team that cleans away graffiti as one of its random acts of kindness, and the centre sells products to remove the paint. For more information about Central Alberta Crime Prevention Centre, located at 108-4711 51st Ave., call 403-986-9904 szielinski@reddeeradvocate. com
WEATHER
INDEX
Mainly sunny. High 23. Low 11.
Four sections Alberta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A3 Business. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B1-B3 Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A5-A6 Classified . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D1-D4 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C4 Entertainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C6 Sports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B4-B7
FORECAST ON A2
TIME TO SHINE C1
Every Thursday evening a Red Deer parking lot is transformed into a sea of gleaming Detroit steel, chrome and horsepower. In an event that has become a summer staple, hundreds of lovingly tended cars roll into the lot behind Parkland Mall. Road dust is gently wiped off and hoods hoisted to show off the power plants that put the muscle in muscle cars for the perusal of appreciative gear heads from 6 to 9 p.m. Red Deer Cruise Night, which began in May and will run into October if the weather holds, has become the place to be for area car lovers, says John Rathwell, a Red Deer car collector and columnist for Red Deer Advocate’s Central Alberta Life. “I am a car guy and I go to car events all over North America and what I’m seeing here in Red Deer is the envy of places all over North America,” said Rathwell, who has been collecting cars for 20 years. “I was down at a cruise night in Florida a little while
ago and they had 125 cars there, and they thought it was pretty cool. “(Cruise Night organizer Dave Burden) on a good night will pull in 500 cars. It’s really been spectacular.” Burden said this season his peak has been 570 vehicles five weeks ago. “We had a drag car night. So a lot of people came out for the drag cars, to check those guys out. “Our average right now is about 350-plus depending on the weather.” It is likely the biggest weekly show and shine nation-wide, said the owner of a prized 1974 Dodge Challenger. Asked for his secret to success, he said, “I try to stay happy and I keep it as free as possibly can. “Plus, I try to make it a family-filled event as well, so the kids and the wives can actually come out.” There are food vendors, a bouncy castle and, occasionally, live bands.
Please see CARS on Page A2
CANADA
ENTERTAINMENT
EXEMPTION SOUGHT FOR U.S. OFFICERS
TIFF TURNING SUPERNATURAL
The United States wants its police officers to be exempt from Canadian law if they agree to take part in a highly touted cross-border policing initiative, says an internal RCMP memo. A5
A supernatural thriller starring ‘Harry Potter’ alum Daniel Radcliffe, fresh frights from horror director Eli Roth, and a sex comedy from Japan are headed to the Toronto International Film Festival. C6