Eston cleaning up after devastating storm

Nicole McCormac could have done without Mother Nature’s housewarming gift.

McCormac’s family moved from Saskatoon to Eston on Saturday, one day before a devastating storm blew into town. Buildings were damaged in and around Eston, which is located approximately 70 kilometres southwest of Rosetown.

McCormac told 980 CJME’s John Gormley on Monday that she and her family were outside until a thunderstorm started. They had just gone into the house when things worsened.

“All of a sudden, just completely out of nowhere, it was windy and hailing and you couldn’t even see across the street,” McCormac said. “It was ridiculous – and no notice at all. I didn’t know, ‘What are we supposed to do? Should we go to the basement?’ I wasn’t sure what was going on.

“It lasted not super-long but it just quit … We’re in the centre of town – we’re on Main Street – so I don’t think we got hit as hard as the area around town. On the outskirts of town, it was really bad.”

According to a news release from the town, the storm hit at about 7:45 p.m. A little more than an hour later, the town activated its Emergency Operations Centre and “assisted the small number of people who were evacuated from their homes.”

“Public works crews, fire departments, SaskPower and SaskEnergy worked into the evening to secure the damaged areas last night,” the town’s release read. “We have been advised that the power outage is expected for at least a minimum of 24 hours.”

The town asked people who don’t need to be in Eston on Monday to avoid the town.

Environment Canada meteorologist Mike McDonald told 650 CKOM that, without a doubt, Eston was the hardest-hit location in the province.

“Horrendous winds estimated at over 100 kilometres per hour,” he said, noting a reporting station was not set up in the area. “Along with reports of toonie-sized hail and ping pong (ball)-sized hail in that area. That was certainly the hardest-hit area.”

McDonald added that the winds were most likely not the work of a tornado.

“We didn’t get any confirmation from anybody in the area that they saw a funnel cloud, we didn’t see any pictures or video of it,” he said. “The only video we seen was some straight line winds that caused a lot of damage.”

No one was injured during the storm, but McCormac said power lines and trees were down around the town. Her house had some damage to the siding on the rear of it, but she noted the house was “livable.”

“We’re lucky,” she admitted.

Others weren’t so fortunate.

“We just drove around again this morning, my husband and I, and tornadoes usually pick things up and throw them,” McCormac said. “(After this storm) most things are close to whatever was destroyed.

“There’s a house down, we saw, and everything (that was inside it) is right there. Nothing really blew too far away. There are campers flipped over.

“Across the street and down a block, a garage blew right over; it’s completely destroyed,” she added. “There are leaves and stuff everywhere. People are just trying to clean up. It’s pretty bad.”

Since she’s new to the community, McCormac hadn’t spoken to any of her neighbours. But she saw a number of them heading past her home after the storm passed through Sunday evening.

“We noticed last night around 9’ish there was car after car after car going down Main Street and I’m like, ‘There’s never this many cars here. Where is everybody going?’ ” McCormac said. “They were all going to look at all the damage because it was that bad.”