Wicked storm a wild shocker

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This article was published 27/06/2015 (3760 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NOT a soul in Roseisle will ever forget what it feels like to live through a possible tornado.

After a series of tornado warnings Saturday afternoon, residents of this small town near Carman had the scare of their lives.

“It was like you turned on your dryer and put your head inside, and then the hail keeps smashing off the tin, constantly,” said Tyler Hiebert, who went through the 20-minute ordeal with a small group of people at the local Roseisle general store.

“What I saw was blowing hail and rain, like a fog. It looked like it was cycloning around the store.”

Environment Canada meteorologist Jeremy Kusyk said, “We can’t confirm that it was a tornado” or even a funnel cloud, but winds in the area reached speeds of 100 km/h or greater.

No injuries were reported, but the storm took out power lines in the region.

Siding was ripped off homes, windows were broken, and limbs were torn from tree trunks. Vehicles sustained dents and smashed windows from the impact of hail that ranged in size from eggs to softballs, witnesses said.

After the storm eased up, residents drove from one home to another, checking if anyone had been hurt.

Several parts of southern Manitoba were under storm watches and tornado warnings Saturday when Environment Canada issued alerts across the province. Roseisle was the only location with eyewitness accounts of a tornado.

“Before we all ducked for cover in door frames, because there’s no basement in the store, you could actually see the curve with the wind, out the front windows. It looked pure white,” said Reena Spearman, who works at the general store. “It was nuts.”

The storm lasted about 20 minutes, she said, and it sounded like being inside a jet turbine engine.

The sight was thrilling and terrifying, she said.

“You could see the curve, where it was round, and you could tell it was circling, like a tornado, bending like a round wall.

“We were scared sh–less, but at the same time we were thinking, ‘This is really cool.’ ”

Diane Gillingham, who lives half a kilometre outside the town with her husband, Grant Gillingham, said the storm was the worst they’d ever seen.

“We had two of our grandchildren with us, so we headed for the basement. Our house is almost 100 years old, and it’s very solid. But the house just shook, trembled. As long as we’ve lived here, we haven’t felt that before,” she said.

“There’s still two inches of hail on the ground, the size of eggs. The front lawn looks like a tossed salad, with every kind of leaf that grows here… We’re thankful everyone is OK.”

Gillingham said one of the first callers to get through was her son, Winnipeg city Coun. Scott Gillingham (St. James-Brooklands-Weston).

“They came out this morning and had lunch with us. He called, and he said ‘You guys OK?’ and I said, ‘Yes. I’m glad you saw the rose garden when you did, because there will be nothing left,’ ” Gillingham said.

Roseisle’s memorial rose garden is the pride of the area.

The community is approximately 95 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg in the Rural Municipality of Dufferin.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca