Powerful storm winds hit west-central Saskatchewan Tuesday night, with three tornadoes leaving a trail of destruction behind them.
Robin Glencross wasn’t here when it hit but video shows a tornado striking her nephew’s place.
“I didn’t answer my phone for a while but I phoned (my brother) back he said yeah, it’s real, it’s real. It did hit,” Glencross said.
She said one or maybe two tornadoes struck in the midst of the family’s fields, near the village of D’Arcy. The farm has been in her family for nearly a century.
“It could have been disastrous. It’s such a relief to know everybody’s OK,” Glencross said.
Environment Canada meteorologist Terri Lang told Global News on Wednesday it’s peak tornado season.
“We had the heat. We also had the moisture around … the crops were giving that moisture off — plus we had some in the air from other rainstorms that happened before, and then the winds in the atmosphere were just right,” she said.
Storm chaser Jenny Hagan was on the ground when they struck.
“They don’t look overly menacing like what you see when you get a giant wedge tornado that has this debris cloud that’s like miles, but they’re just as dangerous,” Hagan said.
While no one was injured, Glencross said the winds destroyed or mangled living keepsakes, like a tree planted to celebrate her parents’ 40th wedding anniversary.
But the emotional damage diminished as family showed up as soon as they could to help clean up and repair the site. Glencross said she’ll rebuild everything exactly as it was so her family can enjoy it for another 100 years.
Lang added it was the same storm system moved north, hitting Prince Albert on Wednesday morning with intense wind, rain and hail.
SaskPower said high winds damaged several power lines, leaving thousands without electricity for much of the day. Service was expected to be fully restored by late Wednesday afternoon.
The storm didn’t last long but people in the city were left cleaning up the damage. Residents Martaret and Doren Bear said the winds were so strung they “shook the house.”
“I was freaking out and all of a sudden we heard this little clink … noises on the doorway and her I thought the door flew up and it didn’t … and all of a sudden we saw a tree just collapse over,” Doren Bear said.
The City of Prince Albert said it responded to several trees down and localized flooding and damage estimates are underway.
— With files from Lara Howsam
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