REGINA – Cottages on Crooked Lake were battered by trees and waves whipped up by the storm that hit Saskatchewan on Saturday night.
Carla Crozier, who owns a cabin on Grenfell Beach, says waves that were more than a metre high washed some cabins completely away.
She says there was also hail bigger than golf balls.
Many owners had spent the week preparing with sandbags as water levels swelled following heavy rainfall over a week ago in the Lower Qu’Appelle River watershed, but Crozier says it didn’t stand up to the storm.
Provincial officials say Crooked Lake rose three centimetres Saturday night, but overall it has fallen eight centimetres from its peak.
Round Lake, meanwhile, rose five centimetres and was expected to set a record when it crests sometime Sunday or Monday.
“It’s discouraging because we spent all week damming up properties. People put up tens of thousands of sandbags,” Crozier said. “And all of that gave way due to this severe weather.”
READ MORE: Crooked Lake residents desperate to save homes
Patrick Boyle with the Water Security Agency said attention is also being paid to both Little Quill and Big Quill Lakes.
Officials remained concerned Sunday about the impact on municipal road grid road 640 that runs north from Wynyard which is one of the main access roads in the area.
Boyle said boaters should use caution when they are on the lakes because of floating debris. He said the wakes that boats generate could also damage flood mitigation efforts.
Environment Canada said there were a number of tornadoes sighted during the storm on Saturday, including one near Outlook that destroyed several buildings on a farm.
No one was seriously hurt.
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Duane McKay, the Commissioner of Fire Safety with Government Relations, said the weather did make it tougher to combat the flooding because it knocked the power out and prevented people from using their sump pumps.
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