Watch above: A massive hail storm hit the town of Kerrobert, Sask. Wednesday when a massive cell passed over the community. Meaghan Craig spoke to residents left with extensive damage in the storm’s wake.
KERROBERT, Sask. – The Town of Kerrobert has declared a state of emergency after the community was blasted with a summer storm carrying up to baseball sized hail and wind gusts in excess of 120 km/h Wednesday evening.
The same system that had millions hunkered down in Calgary as a powerful funnel cloud threatened to touch down before barreling toward Saskatchewan, peaked as it reached the province’s west-central region with Kerrobert left at the mercy of mother nature.
On Thursday, residents of the small town said they saw the storm roll in and just knew what was coming wasn’t good but didn’t expect just how much damage would be left by the storm when all was said and done.
“I went to get out of my van and that’s when it hit, I just closed the door and got back in my van and sat inside, watched my window shield get shattered and my van beat all to heck and I drove around town after that fact and this town is just devastated.” said Dave Bennie.
“This is carrying downpours of up to 300 mm per hour,” said Global News meteorologist Peter Quinlan as he tracked the weather pattern that evening.
Watch below: Video submitted by Jessica Redekop of a hailstorm that hit Langham, Sask. on Wednesday, July 22, 2015
The storm shredded everything in it’s path.
According to Richard Anderson, owner of Kerrobert Paint & Body, most vehicles he assessed on Thursday morning were total losses.
“We’ve looked at over 50 vehicles today,” remarked Anderson.
“I don’t know how many there’s going to be but I’d say every vehicle in town that was outside, not inside a garage, is damaged and every house in town will have some damage, every business.”
The damage in town extensive, everything from shattered windows, the siding on buildings pummelled to debris everywhere you looked.
One tree uprooted, tree house and all, was slammed into the house next to it. A storm packing such a punch, residents say they’ve never seen anything like it.
“I’ve seen catastrophes but not the amount of damage in the 10 minutes this took,” said Robert Hitchcock.
The full magnitude of the damage is still unknown and a local state of emergency has been declared.
“The initial clean-up, that’s one thing, it will probably take a couple days to sort’ve clear the debris and so on but we’re probably going to be cleaning up from this storm for the next year, year and a half at least,” said Maureen Applin, Economic Development Officer for the town of Kerrobert.
As devastating as the storm was, residents say things can be replaced and that it’s miraculous no one got hurt and that’s really all that matter in the end.
Watch below: Residents of a western Saskatchewan town have a big clean up job ahead of them after a hail storm swept through Wednesday evening. Calvin To reports.
Other parts of the province were affected as well. In Regina, a thunderstorm brought down a utility pole as well as several trees around the city.
READ MORE: Tornado touched down southwest of Calgary: Environment Canada
People took to social media to express their shock at the damage that was done.
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