Cleanup underway in Sask. after trio of tornadoes touch down

Communities in east central Saskatchewan are cleaning up after three tornadoes touched down in that area Wednesday.

Wynard, Wadena and Foam Lake were three of the areas hit by the tornadoes that made it to ground level yesterday. The storms caused power outages and significant damage in some areas.

Foam Lake Fire Chief Scott Osborne said no injuries have been reported from yesterday’s storm, but one person had his farm destroyed.

“At about 5 p.m. yesterday we had a tornado touch down about 3 kilometres in length,” Osborne said. “It hit one farmyard and their bin yard, pretty much destroying everything.”

The storm saw Highway 16 closed for 90 minutes, because of derbies from the farm that was tossed around by the twister.

Osborne said his crew is prepared for storms when they expect them to hit, but the speed of the tornado caught them – and the community – by surprise.

“It’s something that you can’t really plan for. Yesterday, the Sask. alert came out five minutes after we were watching the tornado on the ground,” he said.

“There was no notice. The nice thing about social media is, it got around really quickly.”

Osborne didn’t blame the province for the late alert, just because of how quickly the storm changed.

“You’d have to have a weather station every few miles. It’s hard,” he said. “It’s a bad, unfortunate storm, and its something hopefully we never live through again, but its a common thing around western Canada.”

As of 12 p.m. SaskPower said it had restored service in Wynard, Wadena and Foam Lake, but there are still about 85 customers without power.

“There was extensive damage to poles and lines in that area,” explained SaskPower Spokesperson Joel Cherry.

“Our crews had to shut down last night because of the dark, but they returned at first light today to get working again.”

He estimated that all power would be restored by Thursday evening.

While SaskPower is used to dealing with severe storms like this, Cherry said it still can take some time to get power back to customers.

“In Saskatchewan, about one third of all outages we experience are a result of severe weather. In the case of the situation like this where you had a tornado, damage like this is expected,” he added.