Picking up the sodden pieces and trying to save the past By: Malak Abas Posted: 7:17 PM CDT Wednesday, Jun. 10, 2026 Last Modified: 10:42 AM CDT Monday, Aug. 31, 2026 Updates

RM of ROCKWOOD — When J’aime Killbery realized her family’s home in the village of Balmoral was under a tornado warning Tuesday night, she decided to sleep in their basement.

When she woke up in the middle of the night, she stepped into deep water, and the mattress she was on floated away.

The water, brought in by torrential rain in southern Manitoba, rose quickly. Killbery, her partner and her children ran to grab as many valuables as they could. She trudged and splashed through a surprising depth of dark water to save a cross with her late husband’s ashes in it, a bin with his clothes and photos of their family before he died of cancer in 2023.

Her family was able to save important things, and she rescued the suit she bought her son for his upcoming high school grad.

But so much is lost, including pieces of her late husband Wes Killbery’s life, his hockey and baseball cards, memories from before what she describes as a traumatic battle with his terminal illness.

“I know it’s just stuff, but it was our stuff. And that was the stuff that we had with him,” Killbery, 37, said while cleaning out her home Wednesday.

She paused, holding back tears.

“So the more stuff that we lose that was associated with him — I know it sounds weird — but it’s like more of our memories are gone.”

“It’s like more of our memories are gone.”

While much of southern Manitoba experienced heavy rain Tuesday afternoon and evening, nothing came close to the 255-millimetre deluge that swamped Stonewall and the surrounding RM of Rockwood area, including Balmoral.

The RM declared a local state of emergency Wednesday.

Many in the area spent the afternoon picking up the pieces, and helping neighbours pick up theirs.

At the Balmoral Memorial Centre, a popular spot for weddings, funerals and bingo nights, a small group gathered to watch flood water was sucked out of the basement through a gas pump.

The building, just months away from its 100th birthday celebration, will have to close its doors until further notice, said Doug Carter, the president of the community hall’s board of directors. From where he stood, he pointed out the neighbouring home of a couple who had planned to be wed in the hall over the weekend.

That’s not happening now.

“He lives right there, the guy who’s getting married. His place is under water, so, probably, he’s got bigger fish to fry than getting married,” said Carter.

He said culverts had been recently put in to mitigate flooding, but they weren’t made to take such a shocking amount of water.

No one in the community had ever seen anything like this before, he said.

“We got about 10 inches of rain, which is mind-blowing,” he said. “It came so fast.”

In Stonewall, some businesses, including Home Hardware and Big Block Auto and Farm Supply, remained open late Tuesday night to ensure people were able to buy sump pumps and other flood-mitigating tools.

Other businesses were not as lucky. A building shared by two locally owned businesses — Adrenaline Fitness and Ritchie Plumbing and Heating — was partially under water.

Ryan Ritchie, a plumber and volunteer firefighter, was bleary-eyed as he surveyed the damage in his office. He was up all night rushing to storm-related calls, and had just learned he had lost tools worth thousands of dollars.

“This is pretty devastating,” he said. “I almost cried, and I don’t cry.”

Bob Nolin owns the building and rents to several tenants, including his son, who runs the gym. He expects that damages to the structure and gym equipment will be in the neighbourhood of $150,000.

“Insurance is good if your place burns down, but stuff like this, they nitpick… so you’re gonna end up with nothing,” he said.

He blamed the town’s overwhelmed drainage system for the flooding.

“You don’t get a rain like that every day, but I mean the drainage here, you can see the difference in the levels here. Something’s got to change here,” he said. “It’s too late now, but I mean, what you do? You need more culverts.”

A representative from Manitoba Emergency Management Organization paid a visit to Stonewall earlier Wednesday, Mayor Sandra Smith said.

“We’re definitely keeping our fingers crossed… right now we’re under control, but I don’t know what that looks like if there’s more rain in the forecast,” said.

In the meantime, public works staff have been working around the clock, fuelled by gifts of pizza and other forms of support from residents.

“Residents have pulled together. They’re not only looking after their own place, but they’re reaching out to their neighbours, as well, to help,” Smith said.

“Something like this really shows you what a town is made of, and I’m really, really proud.”

“Something like this really shows you what a town is made of, and I’m really, really proud.”

Back at Killbery’s home in Balmoral, the tone in the house shifted from tearful to lighthearted. Her son Easton said he dealt with worse after losing his father, and was just happy his grad suit and Playstation 4 were dry.

“I know that Wes is still watching over us somehow, and maybe he was the one that woke me up, so that we could get his stuff out, because if we didn’t wake up and if we didn’t sleep downstairs, we would have lost it all,” Easton’s mother said.

“So that I’m grateful for.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca