Windstorm clobbers the region

Wind speeds reached 119 kilometres an hour in Deloraine on Thursday, the fastest registered wind across the country, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada.

The Prairie provinces were pounded by a wind and dust storm on Thursday and Friday, causing poor visibility, knocking out power across southern Manitoba and bringing down trees, shingles and business signs in Brandon.

“We had really strong southerly winds that gusted up to 119 kilometres an hour in some locations, but there have been widespread wind gusts above 90 kilometres an hour,” ECCC warning preparedness meteorologist Danielle Desjardins said.

The “really potent” low-pressure system tracked across the Prairies on Wednesday and continued into Friday, she said.

Thursday had “the perfect conditions” for a dust storm because of the very dry conditions, the sheer strength of the wind and sparse early-season greenery cover, she said.

“We do see windstorms like this, you know, a couple times a year. This is one of the more potent ones,” Desjardins said.

“Strong winds, I’d say, gusting to 90 is a lot or more frequent. The 100 km/h-plus is definitely on the stronger side.”

In Manitoba, Minto had the second-highest wind speed — and third-highest in Canada — at 113 km/h, followed by Brandon at 106 km/h, ECCC data show.

Reports on Facebook over Friday showed instances of damage across the city, from lost trampoline poles and other lost items, to wind-damaged shingles on the Motel 6 Hotel on Brandon’s North Hill and downed business signs — including the large Hi-Way Esso gas station sign along the Trans-Canada Highway on the north side of the city.

David McLean, the station manager, said the sign came down in a heap of twisted metal at about 8 p.m. Thursday.

“It was good to hear that it hadn’t hit anything. (I was thinking) ‘I guess that’s something I’ll have to deal with tomorrow,’” he said.

It appears the sign will be salvageable. McLean said it won’t be possible to complete a full assessment of the damage until next week.

There were also several downed trees in the community, including at the Brandon Municipal Cemetery as well as the Child and Adolescent Treatment Centre on 10th Street.

The city’s parks and public works staff had responded to 20 tree-related calls as of Friday afternoon, the City of Brandon said.

Several fallen trees or split branches lay across roadways in the city and crews were cleaning them up to restore safe passage.

But no one area was hit significantly, said City of Brandon arbourist Mike Atkins late Friday.

“It was quite spread out,” Atkins said, adding that downed trees were reported all over the city.

“We had a couple around downtown, like Stanley Park. It was not localized. It was all over.”

Most of the downed trees were ash trees, Atkins said, with a few spruce as well. One tree at the cemetery went over a few headstones, but it was cleaned up on Friday.

Atkins said the city crews worked late Friday afternoon to ensure the danger zones were cleaned up in advance of the Victoria Day long weekend. But some work will remain for next week.

“There will still be some cleanup on Tuesday,” Atkins said. “We left some piles to make stuff safe, and tried to get all the hazards that we could.”

Damage from the windstorm was reported across the region.

Southeast of Russell, Darren Charron couldn’t believe his eyes as the roof of his mobile home was sheared off and scattered into the fields around his rural property.

“Literally, I watch the roof peel right up and then kind of get hung up. Then everything went straight up in the air and just flew all over the place,” he said Friday.

“It was surreal to me.”

Charron said he arrived to his mobile home around 2 p.m. Thursday, just in time to witness its destruction. He spent hours trying to brace the structure’s walls and — bizarrely — sweeping away the rain that poured in.

“I was very tired, very stressed, trying to process everything. I know I had a mental break yesterday when I was trying to scoop up the water and put it into the garbage can,” Charron said.

Exhausted, he fell asleep inside the mobile home, only to be awakened early in the morning as the high winds persisted.

“I woke up and I had a major panic attack and my heart was racing. It felt like the whole thing was going to rip apart — like you’re on a freight train. The whole thing was just shaking back and forth,” Charron said.

“The walls were buckling.”

Charron bought the property in the spring of 2024 and has spent the past two years renovating the mobile home. While he has insurance for the land, he could not secure coverage for the home because it had been vacant for an extended period of time.

That means he is on the hook for the cost of repairs. The reality of his situation was only just settling in Friday, as he began to pick up the pieces.

“It’s going to be a huge expense,” Charron said, adding he has started an online fundraiser to help with the cost.

The wind-hit region also had wildfires to contend with.

In the Municipality of Grassland, crews battled two fires, one south of Hartney and one in Minto.

The Hartney fire started around 2:30 p.m. on Thursday and got under control around 5:30 p.m., chief administrative officer Kristy Wells told the Sun. It started after a tree fell on a hydro line, causing sparks and turning into a grass fire that spread to nearby bales.

“Due to the high winds, firefighters … faced extremely challenging conditions while working to contain the fire,” Wells said.

Crews from departments in Hartney, Elgin and from the Municipality of Deloraine-Winchester all responded to the blaze that intensified and spread three miles to the east, she said.

“It was pretty scary at times, but … our fire department, they showed up, stepped up and were amazing,” Wells said.

Wells didn’t have any information about the Minto fire, and a fire chief contacted for more information didn’t respond to a voicemail left Friday morning. A school in the community was closed because of a power outage.

Manitoba Hydro spokesperson Peter Chura said about 6,000 customers across southern Manitoba were without power early Friday because of 260 outages.

“That’s quite a lot to respond to, but we are devoting all available resources to getting to all of those outages and safely restoring power as quickly as possible,” Chura said Friday afternoon.

“We’ve had power lines pulled down by the wind, trees pushed over onto power lines, lines down, debris flying through the air that’s contacted power lines and caused fires or outages,” he said.

It’s hard to determine how long it will take to repair all the damage, Chura said, as crews have to assess each outage individually.

A repair can be as easy as lifting a tree off a line or as complicated as completely replacing a pole, he said.

Looking ahead, Desjardins said there will likely be some precipitation this long weekend, including the possibility of snow.

If there is snowfall this weekend or early next week, it would likely melt on contact with the ground or not stick around for long, she said.

» alambert@brandonsun.com, with files from Tyler Searle and Matt Goerzen