Heavy rain, tennis ball-sized hail batters Lake Diefenbaker

A stormy summer night in Saskatchewan on Saturday dished out a wide array of damage.

Cleanups are taking place in a number of communities after intense storms pelted homes, vehicles and campsites with heavy rain, high winds and toonie-sized hail.

Bruce Dorward, a councilor with the resort village of Mistusinne at Lake Diefenbaker, woke up to a sea of tree branches and leaves in every direction.

“Carnage,” he said of the village’s condition on Sunday. “We’ve got a lot of big ol’ cottonwood trees here and the whole village is just a blanket of leaves and branches.”

Dorward said any vehicle left outside in the resort on Lake Diefenbaker is likely to be written off from hail damage.

Check out this video of massive hail falling Saturday in Mistusinne at Lake Diefenbaker. (🎥 Bruce Dorward) pic.twitter.com/roRAwFjliU

— 650 CKOM (@CKOMNews) July 14, 2019

“I think virtually every windshield — any vehicle that was outside last night — sunroofs are gone, windshields are gone,” Dorward said. “The damage is intense.”

Dorward thinks Saturday’s storm is the worst weather he can remember in the area since he moved there in 1982.

The size of the hail in Bruce Dorward’s yard. (submitted/Bruce Dorward)

Environment Canada issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the area and reported tennis ball-sized hail falling in the area. Dorward said the storm began dropped hail around 7:30 p.m.

That’s around the same time that Coyote Springs Campground, a few kilometres further north of Mistusinne, had tents and campsites thrown across the area.

“People who lost their tents, some of them aren’t even sure where they went,” Marcelle Savidan, manager of the campsite, said Saturday after the storm blew through.

“So, some of those folks are headed home.”

Dorward said Mistusinne quickly banded together for the storm that lasted only 10 minutes. He was at a neighbour’s house repairing windows as soon as it was safe to be outside.

“She’s out here by herself. The windows on the one side of her place were just knocked right out, so we were up there last night putting plywood on the damaged windows… it was just hard to imagine,” Dorward said, letting out a chuckle in disbelief.

Yards were covered in up to four inches of hail after the storm. (submitted/Bruce Dorward)

No one in the small village was badly hurt or needed an ambulance, but Dorward noted two boys running home in the storm were bruised and scratched by the hail and branches falling.

As people inspect the damage to the hundreds of vehicles, homes, cabins and other shelters in the area, Dorward suspects there will be a huge influx of insurance claims soon.

“The ferocity of the storm was just so intense. Other people were standing on the street and visiting and just going, ‘Holy Crap!'” Dorward said.

Dorward recently bought a new F-150 pickup truck that he thinks will be written off, his roof will need serious renovations, but tree branches still covering the area will need to be cleaned up before he knows how bad damage really is.

Bruce Dorward’s deck following the storm. (submitted/Bruce Dorward)

“As much damage as there was people are pretty good-natured about it all. We live on the prairies, we’re susceptible to those (storms),” Dorward said.

“We got a large compost pile on the west side of the village. It’s going to grow in size today.”

Mistusinne is located right on Lake Diefenbaker, just south of Elbow. The village is roughly 180 km from Regina and 140 km from Saskatoon.

— With files from 650 CKOM’s Chris Vandenbreekel