Deadly tornado strikes near Alonsa

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This article was published 07/08/2018 (2587 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ALONSA — One person is dead and several others were left without homes after a tornado ripped through Margaret Bruce Beach near Alonsa on Friday evening.

Jack Furrie, 77, was killed outside his home, and his house was reduced to nothing but a foundation by Saturday morning.

An elderly couple was also admitted to hospital after a wall in their home just east of Alonsa fell on them, said a spokesperson with Environment Canada.

No other casualties have been reported so far.

Alonsa is located about 175 kilometres northeast of Brandon.

The ones who made it through the night were grateful to be alive.

Jill Catagas, who lives in Brandon, had just arrived at the beach to enjoy the August long weekend when the destruction started.

“I pulled in actually and a neighbour came running and said ‘look behind your van, there’s a tornado behind you,’” Catagas said.

Catagas said she was lucky she could escape to the home of a local resident who was camping on the beach but lived nearby.

“There was at least 40 of us in their basement,” she said. “We had about a dozen children, so we threw them all under mattresses in the basement.”

From there they watched through a window as the tornado ran its unpredictable course.

“It was within probably 40 feet from the house from hitting it,” she said.

As a result of the storm, the owner of the house they were staying in lost all of his bales of hay. Not only that, but “there’s cows missing,” she said.

Although Catagas’ trailer survived, the back window of her van was smashed by the storm. Her son’s trailer was not as lucky. It was reduced to a pile of rubble in front of her parked vehicle.

“We had everyone checking campers making sure everyone was accounted for, Catagas said.

The buildings surrounding the beach toilets were also destroyed. They were completely gone, leaving just toilets, which sat out in the middle of the sand on Saturday afternoon and offered no privacy. Someone had placed the men’s sign on one toilet and the women’s on the other — they had survived the tornado.

Trailers had been destroyed, houses had been flattened, but some of the strangest things were still in one piece. Glass bottles of liquor stood upright in the sand seemingly untouched from Friday night’s storm.

Still, the overall damage was incredible.

One resident of Alonsa said he was shocked that more people weren’t killed. Shawn Gurke cursed often as he drove around in his pickup and looked at the damage Saturday afternoon.

As of Saturday at approximately 1 p.m., Bluff Creek Road that led to the beach was closed off to the public, and Gurke, a volunteer fire fighter with the community, invited The Sun to come along for the ride.

During the drive up the beach, Gurke found a tractor that was upside down, cabins that were reduced to nothing and a truck floating along in the water. He also found his boat, which had been badly damaged by the tornado.

Gurke usually camped at Margaret Bruce Beach, but for the August long weekend this year he took his family to Clear Lake instead.

Although his family was OK, the $60,000 boat he had left behind that he said he built with his dad was badly damaged.

“It must weigh 3,500 pounds easy. It’s a big commercial aluminum boat, but the tornado must have flown my boat way over here,” Gurke said.

It was washed up on the sand, the metal bent at awkward angles and hay and water floating in the place where there used to be seats.

Unfortunately for Gurke, he had no insurance on it.

“I’ll never have another boat like it,” he said.

As he drove around, he found the prop for the boat amongst the wreckage.

“I was hoping for a souvenir and that’s it,” he said. “I could hang it up on the mantle.”

The storm hit Friday evening at around 8:30 p.m, according to John Paul Cragg, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada.

“Just south of Silver Ridge there were reports of a tornado touching down,” Cragg said.

“We do get a lot of tornadoes, but often they don’t hit anything,” he said. “This is typical of a stronger tornado hitting buildings in a more populated area of the Prairies.”

Although the exact width of the twister’s path is still being determined, at one point it seemed to be about 800 metres, and was likely on the ground for at least 20 minutes before making its exit over Lake Manitoba, according to a spokesperson with Environment Canada.

» mverge@brandonsun.com, with files from The Canadian Press

» Twitter: @Melverge5