Tornado wreaks havoc near Rossburn

A couple from Rossburn say they are lucky to be alive after a tornado ripped off the southeast corner of their brick century-old house while they were inside it on Sunday evening.

Brian Brown was working in his shop around 7:30 p.m. when it started hailing with thunder and lightning, so he headed for the house.

He was standing near his wife, Bernadine Brown, who was putting clothes in the dryer on the northeast side of the house, when he saw a big tree fall out of the corner of his eye.

“I just yelled at her to get away from the windows, and I grabbed her and threw her on the floor,” Brian said.

The thrash of the tornado lasted about 10 seconds, he said. It wasn’t until after the tornado hit that he received a notification about it on his phone, he said.

“When I got up, the room was full of debris. Every picture on the wall, and all the way up the stairs, was down — gone,” Brian said. “If it had happened half an hour earlier, some of us would be dead and if it happened a couple hours later — if we were in bed — we’d really be dead because that southeast corner is our bedroom.”

Fortunately, the couple was not injured, he said.

Brian said he went to look for clean clothes in his dresser located on the south wall of his bedroom, but he couldn’t find any pieces of it in the rubble.

He and Bernadine were still in shock Monday while they assessed the damage to their home, which was built in 1904. The couple has lived on the farm property since 2004.

While Brian was speaking with the Sun by phone, he pulled one of his cats, which could be heard meowing, from some of the rubble.

Jocelyne Hebert, the Browns’ daughter, said five of the couple’s cats were missing as of Monday afternoon. Later in the day, three had been accounted for. The Browns’ horses were also OK.

Family members drove from communities as far away as Oakbank and Anola to support the couple in the wake of the tornado’s destruction.

“All you could see (driving up) was half a barn and all these trees exposing the house, which is normally nestled inside this thick layer of forest,” Hebert said.

“It looks like a movie. The bricks are falling off. Half the house is gone.”

The Browns’ belongings are scattered across the property with shards of glass from the broken windows on the ground, and other items, including one of their 54-year-old son’s childhood toys.

A bedspread was hanging from a nearby spruce tree.

“All the trees, like over 100-year-old trees, were all broken in half like nothing,” Hebert said.

She said her 76-year-old parents spent years restoring the home that they retired to. It’s unclear what comes next for them, but they will have to search for a short-term place to stay.

“My parents have lost everything. It’s very surreal,” she said.

Shirley Kalyniuk, mayor of the Rossburn Municipality, walked through the property on Monday morning to examine the damage.

“It’s like a war zone,” she said. “It’s horrible.”

The neighbouring farm property located approximately 300 yards away was also impacted by the tornado and suffered severe damage to its garage and shop, Kalyniuk said.

That family’s house is still standing, she said.

Rossburn fire Chief Kelly Slon said when the fire department arrived at the neighbouring home, extended family and others were already there to check on the property.

A detached garage and shed were destroyed, and the home’s roof was damaged, he said. Some Hydro poles, bushes and large trees were also down.

“I’ve been doing this for 40 years, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Slon said.

Brian Proctor, meteorologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada, said a tornado was observed near Rossburn at 7:59 p.m. and wind gusts of 100 kilometres per hour were reported in the area.

A second possible tornado was seen near Roblin around 8:55 p.m., he said.

The weather agency is working with The Northern Tornadoes Project to survey the storm damage in both areas. Proctor couldn’t provide more information on the tornadoes, including their path or the Enhanced Fujita scale (E-F scale), which indicates the amount of damage ranging from residential housing to office towers to trees.

A zero on the E-F scale is the weakest ranking and five is the strongest.

For a tornado to occur, a few things must happen.

“It’s not just heat, but it’s moisture, it’s instability, which is associated with the heat, it’s the shear in the atmosphere and something to sort of set it off,” Proctor said. “That’s what we had yesterday over southeast Saskatchewan, southwest Manitoba.”

Tornadoes are most active in Manitoba from mid-June to mid-July, he said.

Aaron Jayjack, a storm chaser from Boissevain, said he was tracking supercells throughout the afternoon that didn’t amount to much until he saw the Rossburn tornado forming around 7:30 p.m.

“It went from those little clouds just bubbling up to a violent wedge tornado, and in a little less than an hour, a tornado planted down,” he said. “The first little whirl was probably about five to 10 feet right in front of me.”

Jayjack said he chased the tornado for about 20 minutes before he stopped to check on the two properties that were hit.

He went to the Brown property first and yelled out to see if anyone was hurt. He was surprised to see that most of their house was still standing. After 911 was called and more people arrived at the scene, he left to check on the neighbouring property.

“When I arrived, there was another car there with a couple of people. I don’t know if they were storm chasers or what, but they were telling me that they just checked the home and they didn’t think anybody was home,” he said.

Jayjack estimates the E-F scale to be at least two but possibly a three or four.

Barb Inkster, from Langenburg, Sask., was driving on Highway 16 near Provincial Road 264 when she saw the tornado touch down. She pulled over to take pictures.

“It was the most amazing thing honestly, to watch it, like, kind of form and touch down and grow and move,” she said.

» tadamski@brandonsun.com, with files from the Winnipeg Free Press