Maple Creek grocery store swamped during power outage

The lights are out across town in Maple Creek, but some spots are still chugging along with generators.

The town and surrounding area in the southwest were hit with a vicious storm Tuesday, closing highways and knocking out SaskPower service to the entire community.

But while most buildings had the lights out, that wasn’t the case for Cypress Wholesale Foods and Deli.

The store managed to stay open thanks to a power generator, which made it quite the spot during the winter-like storm.

The store’s owner, Jennifer Melanson, described what it was like to see the town after the storm hit.

“We were asleep when the wind hit and knocked out everything. But the next morning, there were trees downed (and) power lines snapped in half. It was pretty crazy,” she recalled.

She believes hers was the only store in town open Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning.

“We have a generator, so we managed to get some power going. We were serving a bit of hot food … We managed OK, but now we’re in Day 2 and it’s starting to get a little bit chaotic,” she said.

How chaotic?

“We’re really busy … We’re one of the few that have the ability to stay open, so it just kind of combines with everything. We have staff that can’t make it in, they live out of town, so we’re running short-staffed. We’ve had no power to heat our homes and everybody’s coming in to work,” Melanson said.

Still, she’s glad for the community’s support, even in this tough time.

“We’re not all in the best of shape ourselves personally, so the fact that everybody’s coming in and helping out is really awesome,” she said. “But it’s just busy.”

Luckily, she’s confident her store will be able to keep things running until the power comes back for the rest of town.

“My husband’s pretty Mr. Fix-it. He’s kind of a handy guy, so he’s been keeping everything going,” she said.

Still, it’s not an effort that can last forever.

“We do need power to come back on at some point,” Melanson said. “But for the most part, we’re managing.”

Roads are treacherous

Dickson Delorme was in Robsart, about 70 kilometres south of Maple Creek, to visit some family on Tuesday.

The weather came as a shock to him.

“We woke up to no power in the morning, and there would have been almost half a foot of snow blown into his yard. It was like someone had unleashed the northern Arctic down there,” Delorme remembered. “It was just absolute chaos.”

They were trying to feed his cousin’s cattle, but it wasn’t easy.

“You couldn’t see five feet in front of the truck. I’ve run a lot of years up in the Territories, in northern Canada, and I’ve seen some pretty crazy snowstorms,” he began.

“I don’t know what it is about that south banana belt there, but when it blows in, it’ll put you to the test to see if you’re really from Saskatchewan or not.”

He had to get home to his farm near Foam Lake late Wednesday morning, and decided to take Highway 13.

The conditions were brutal once he got to Eastend.

“There’s a truck off in the ditch, on the opposite side of the road he’s supposed to be on. He’s been there all night, I guess. And the wind is whipping the snow across the highway where this semi truck was stuck in the ditch, and there were four different vehicles stuck in the middle of the road there,” Delorme said.

He urged anybody thinking about taking that stretch to stay home.

“It’s an absolute disaster. I’m pumping my own tires here: I’m a pretty good driver and road conditions usually don’t rattle me. I was having a hard time staying on the road,” he said.