‘Only the house is left:’ devastating tornado destroys farm

It only took a few minutes for a tornado to wreak havoc to the tune of $1 million on the Zakaluzny’s farm.

“From the time I went from one window to the other in the house, the whole yard was gone,” said Eugene Zakaluzny, who has been on the land south east of Swift Current for the last 67 years.

“I looked out and all I had seen was a little bit of dust and and a little rain shower … About two minutes later, everything was gone.”

Environment Canada confirmed that the tornado touched down in the area, with reports coming in not long before 6:00 p.m.

The natural disaster adds to what has not been an easy year for farmers.

An historically bad drought, extreme heat, along with grasshopper infestations have made for a very challenging summer.

This latest storm was not the first run-in with bad luck for Zakaluzny.

The farmer said he lost his workshop along with another shed after an electrical fire in January.

“It’s a year, I guess, that a person doesn’t want to remember,” Zakaluzny said. “There’s only the house left on the farm, most of the trees are smashed, everything is looking pretty desolate, so I think I’m gonna go into retirement.

“She’s been a tough year, this one.”

The clean-up, which is expected to be a lengthy process, will start within the next few days.

“It’s going to be a long time because everything is laying on top of everything, bins are upside down, grain augers are through some of the bins,” said Zakaluzny. “We have to wait and see what insurance says.

Zakaluzny is thankful neither himself or his family got hurt and that their home only suffered minor damages to the exterior.

A GoFundMe has been created to help alleviate the family of some financial stress.

‘There was a ton of hail:’ Storm chaser recalls vicious conditions

Saskatchewan storm chaser Jenny Hagan said Monday night’s storm was an interesting one — unlike any she’s seen in recent memory.

“I probably drove on about 140 kilometres of hail-covered highways last night,” Hagan said. “You would normally see pockets and sections of hail when you’re out chasing these storms, they don’t usually dump that much hail for that long.

“I think in 10 years of chasing, this is a first for me for with that long of a stretch of hail.”

Was so great to get a backyard chase today. I can’t remember if I’ve ever seen a storm put down that much hail for that many KMS ever. Drove through almost 146km of hail covered hwy’s in west central #skstorm especially late August pic.twitter.com/1jPitt63AS

— Jenny Hagan LostInSk (@LostInSk) August 24, 2021

Hagan says she was chasing in the Kindersley area and added that wind gusts easily rivalled 90 km/h.

“Some areas could have seen some damage from those wind gusts,” she said. “The crops took a little bit of beating. Luckily with the mass amount of rain that we had they didn’t get completely flattened.”

Hagan said she and some other chasers saw a tornado briefly touch down in the Kindersley area.

Despite that sighting, she says the tornado that landed near Hodgeville was “massive” in comparison.

Environment Canada has confirmed they are looking into multiple reported tornado sightings from Monday night.