A rural Manitoba family says they huddled helplessly in their basement as a tornado ripped the house overhead to pieces.
An F4 tornado touched down near Alonsa, Man., Friday night, destroying houses, campers, and killing one man.
Russel Cabak, who lives about 14 kilometres east of Alonsa near Lake Manitoba, said the day started out normally before taking a destructive turn.
“It’s quite a traumatic experience to go through,” he told CJOB Tuesday afternoon. “I saw dark clouds approaching from the west.”
The farmer, who was out in his fields, went home and parked his tractor and baler, anticipating rain. “Then it starts hailing,” he said, describing it as golf-ball sized.
“And all of a sudden we saw the skies and the clouds getting a weird colour and shapes, and we started to see rotation to the west, about a mile to the west. It was comin’ straight for us.”
Cabak gathered his family, 14 in total including his grandchildren, as well as three dogs, into the basement of a small house on their land.
“We heard this loud roar of a tornado coming. You could hear it like a freight train just the other side of the bush.”
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“All of a sudden, there were big winds in the basement. We looked up, and the house was gone.”
Cabak’s grandchildren were screaming in terror, he said, adding he doesn’t blame them and thought they would all die.
Meanwhile, his son Shawn was nearby in a garage with one of the dogs, having been unable to make it to the basement. The garage was destroyed, and his son doesn’t remember what happened, waking up later on a pile of rubble with the dog, named Amber, missing.
Once the tornado passed, the family climbed out of the basement and ran for the Cabaks’ main house. They soon discovered people were huddled in basements all over the area, with 30 in one basement and 40 in another, thanks to a nearby campground.
Shawn started searching for his dog in the nearby fields and spotted her peering out of the fields on his way back to the house.
“He called her, but she was so scared she didn’t want to come to him.”
“We can’t hardly find any parts of the house. … My Silverado was tossed around and now looks like an accordion,” he said, adding another family truck ended up in the lake.
The family is thankful no one was hurt and that they all survived.
“Hopefully, this message might save a life down the road.”
LISTEN: Hear Russel Cabak’s incredible story about surviving the Alonsa tornado:
— With files from Tristan Field-Jones and Kathy Kennedy
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