Parts of River Heights hammered by storm

A powerful storm cut a swath of destruction through River Heights on Sunday, leaving much of the area without power.

Thankfully, nobody was hurt in the storm. Yet by the time it subsided, parts of the quiet neighbourhood, especially Borebank and Lindsay streets between Grant and Taylor, had been ravaged. Downed power lines; toppled Manitoba Hydro poles; trees splintered and crashed down on vehicles and homes.

In one case, a vehicle appeared to have been picked up by the wind and flipped into a yard, under a partially downed tree. In others, shingles had been stripped from roofs. Some residents described looking out during the storm and seeing power lines ablaze, and the blue glow of electricity arcing over their back yards.

Jennifer Boychuck was at home with her son, Matthew, when the worst of the storm struck. She was in her kitchen, washing dishes, when she noticed the winds picking up to an alarming level.

“At first I thought, ‘is there going to be a tornado?’” Boychuck recalled. “Then I thought, ‘well, we’re not getting the warnings on our phone, like we did that one day.’ But the wind was getting stronger and stronger… all of a sudden I thought, ‘this isn’t right.’ It got really, really loud.”

As Boychuck and her son raced to shutter the rest of their windows and gather their cats, they looked out the window to see debris floating in the air outside their home. Her son heard some loud bangs, possibly of several trees splitting and crashing onto houses nearby; she looked out to see the power lines toppling over her yard.

To their relief, the worst of the wind lasted only a few minutes — though it felt longer at the time, she said.

On Monday, residents of the most heavily-damaged streets set about clearing bags of tree debris from their yards, and helping their neighbours do the same. Others strolled through streets partially blocked off due to downed power lines, pausing to greet each other, trade information, and swap stories about what they’d seen.

Despite the heavy damage to some property, many residents took the situation in stride, choosing to enjoy the chance to get out and talk with their neighbours. (“There’s no power, what else are we gonna do?” one resident quipped, brightly.) Several said they had never seen damage quite that extensive in their area.

Around the corner from Boychuk’s house, Joe Michalchyshyn chatted with Manitoba Hydro workers to see if there was any information about when power would be back. (There was not.) He had been out at the lake when the storm hit, and found out about the situation when one of his neighbours messaged and sent a picture.

“It said, ‘there’s a tree in your house,’” Michalchyshyn said.

Luckily, it could have been worse: though part of the large tree outside his house split off and crashed into the roof of his porch, there did not appear to be significant damage.

“Thank god, the house is okay, and nobody was at home to get hurt,” he said.

While several River Heights residents described witnessing what appeared to them to be tornado-like funnel winds, there were no official reports to Environment Canada of tornadoes within Winnipeg, said Dan Fulton, an Environment Canada meteorologist based here.

Severe wind damage west of Elie in Bénard could be investigated as a potential tornado, Fulton said, with researchers from the Northern Tornadoes Project expected to arrive on scene later this week.

The heaviest rain during Sunday’s storms — 93 mm — was recorded at an agricultural station just outside of Portage la Prairie, Fulton said. Winnipeg got roughly 30 to 60 mm, with 63 mm recorded at The Forks and 35 mm at the airport.

It’s the latest in a series of thunderstorms that have battered Winnipeg and other parts of the province this summer, but rain and wind gusts weren’t as severe this time around as those recorded in storms in early June, late July and late August.

On June 9 and 10, a tornado touched down near Ste. Anne and 255 millimetres of rain flooded Stonewall. On July 29 and 30, wind gusts wreaked havoc and reached speeds of up to 133 km/h in Brandon.

Just last week on Aug. 30, a tornado was reported near Elkhorn, about 105 kilometres west of Brandon.

The wild storms won’t necessarily be an annual occurrence, said Fulton, noting it’s too simplistic to just chalk up to climate change the complex factors that cause a season of severe thunderstorms.

“This is an active summer for thunderstorms, but it’s not to say that next summer won’t be the complete opposite.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca

-With files from Katie May