An arena has been destroyed, dozens of tree have been uprooted and residents of Pipestone are only beginning to clean up their community.
“It’s a war zone,” one resident told Global News on Sunday.
Officials said roofs were blown off some homes in Pipestone and some families were being moved to Reston after a severe summer storm hit southwest Manitoba on Saturday evening.
Environment Canada says a severe thunderstorm with hail and strong winds swept through the Pipestone and Hartney area near the Saskatchewan border just after the supper hour.
A spokesperson said it was highly probable that there was a tornado in the area, though has not yet been confirmed and there are no eyewitness accounts.
“It kept getting bigger and bigger and all of a sudden you couldn’t see nothing for dust flying, then it change directions and started to rain — you can see the result,” another resident of Pipestone said.
Residents near Hartney told Global News on Saturday they saw heavy rain, golf-ball-sized hail and strong winds that ripped the leaves off the trees.
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“It was literally raining leaves, just coming down green,” said Kevin Grindey from his inlaws’ home about eight kilometres outside Hartney. “We knew the winds were pretty crazy. Then the hail came, small at first, then easily golf-ball-sized within about 10 minutes.”
The storm only lasted about 40 minutes, Grindley said.
His brother-in-law’s yard had wind damage.
“It was clearly a twister-like swath through the windbreak — took down the trees and took a cattle shed out.”
Manitoba Hydro said more than 1,000 customers in the rural area along Highway 2 and the towns of Pipestone, Reston and Hartney were without power Sunday night after strong winds knocked out four lines and damaged 20 hydro poles.
A spokesperson told Global News crews were working around the clock to get the damage repaired and restore power, which was still out in the Pipestone area at around 4 p.m. Sunday.
“Pipestone will rebound. We got a good strong community here, same as the neighbouring towns and RMs, good community spirit,” a Pipestone-area resident said.
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