‘It just flattened it’: Three injured after severe storm rips through Meadow Lake Provincial Park

Dan Kulak, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said video evidence from the shoreline appears to show a water spout and another tornado in the background further away.

But whether the winds were straight line or tornadic in nature is yet to be determined.

“There was some evidence of rotation on radar but we don’t know if it was actually a tornado that hit the campground,” he said.

Teams from Edmonton are expected to arrive Sunday afternoon. Crews from Western University in Ontario are en route to perform a drone survey to better understand the damage patterns left behind from the storm.

“Is there two tornados that happened to just strike the only populated locations along those shore lines at roughly the same time or is it more a broader outflow wind that effected these locations,” he said. “That is something we have to look at.”

Chris de Orla shot this video of his campsite after the storm.

Goodsoil Mayor John Purves, who has lived in the community since 1972, said he has never seen damage to this extent before impact so many people.

“I have seen plow wind damage in the forest and tornado damage by Kimball [Lake] years ago but nothing quite like the way this thing affected that campground,” he said. “It just flattened it.”

Purves arrived at Murray Doell campground before emergency crews. Soon after, volunteers from Goodsoil with chainsaws showed up to help open roads that were littered with trees. Many in the village opened their doors and billeted families who had nowhere to go, he said.

The recreation hall opened to those impacted by the storm and villagers quickly flocked bearing blankets, food and toys.

“I was not surprised by that reaction at all,” he said.

The Canada Day parade will go ahead in Goodsoil, which Purves hopes will give people a chance to come together and take their mind off the devastation.

In a post on Facebook, SaskParks said the organization is in the process of identifying what can be successfully removed from Murray Doell Campground.

“We encourage those in the area to be cautious and prioritize safety,” they wrote, asking the public to avoid the impacted areas to allow authorities to do their work.

Barry Butler, who works with a property development company at Laumans Landing, became stuck in the middle of it all. At around 4:45 p.m., he was looking at a lot a family member had purchased when the storm hit.

“Suddenly, we felt the wind change and I said we need to get to the car and by the time we got to the car it had hit,” he said. “We tried getting away from the trees but they were blown down all around us.”

Butler said he has experienced a plow wind go through the area before but said this one “felt different.”

“This one felt like the wind was coming from every direction,” he said. “This one knocked over trailers, tore slides off of trailers and ripped a part of a roof off of a house. I’ve never seen that before.”

Donald Achanga and his family were on their first camping trip of the year after purchasing a trailer three weeks ago.

They were on a walk along the lakefront and became trapped under a gazebo when the storm hit. Achanga said he saw dark clouds roll in before hail started to fall. Within seconds, he said the wind picked up and trees started to snap like toothpicks without making a sound.

A friend flipped over a picnic table to use as cover as trees and wood started to fly everywhere. He and his wife started to get pelted with marble-sized hail so he huddled everyone together and covered them.

Donald Achanga captured this video showing the before and after of a storm that went through Meadow Lake Provincial Park.

“It was so surreal it was like being in a movie. Trees with like a 30-inch diameter folded over like nothing,” he said. “It was beautiful and then suddenly there was nothing there. … Everything was just folded right over.”

As they went back to their camper once everything calmed down, the family checked tents, some which had logs through them, and tried to help others.

“There was a lady trapped in her camper and they had to saw her out through the roof,” he said.

The family was taken to the Goodsoil Recreation Hall, which was opened to those impacted by the storm. Achanga said they were welcomed with open arms and the experience has restored his faith in humanity.

“Everyone, they were right in there. Everybody, even people who were hurt, bleeding from the face, were out there trying to help each other,” he said.

Achanga’s truck is damaged and not drivable so the family has no way home and have to try to figure out what to do with the truck and trailer in the coming days.

A trailer sits damaged from a storm that tore through Laumans Landing in Meadow Lake Provincial Park. (submitted/Durelle Demuth)

Damage from a storm that tore through Meadow Lake Provincial Park. (Nikita Ganovicheff/meadowlakeNOW Staff)

Edmonton’s Chris and Karen de Orla were on their way back to their campsite after picking up cigarettes in Goodsoil when the storm hit.

The couple said they watched a funnel cloud form, touch down and go back up just minutes before loonie sized hail started to come down.

They pulled over near a service centre in the park and watched trees topple over one after another like dominos and were worried something was going to come through the car. A tree fell on a truck in front of them that had children and a dog inside. No was one injured.

After it calmed down, the couple made their way to their campsite through ground white with hail, deep, cold puddles and blocked roads and trails, only to find their tent trailer blown about 40 feet into some bushes, flipped over and snapped in half.

“It was kind of devastating,” Chris said.

The couple joked how they were once intrigued with storm chasing, but no longer. “Storm chasing from a distance, great. Being in it, no thank you,” Chris said with a laugh. “Mother Nature is so unpredictable and this storm came up so fast. … There was no warning.”

Chris said they do not know what comes next. They stayed in Cold Lake overnight and returned to the campground Sunday only to settle on heading back home and deal with the trailer at a later date after contending with security and SaskParks.

Dozens of emergency personnel and volunteers are on scene helping those impacted by the storm. (supplied photo/Melissa Kuzior)

Barry Butler says campers were flipped over and trees were uprooted after a storm tore through Meadow Lake Provincial Park. (submitted photo/Barry Butler)

Melissa Kuzior was with her family visiting Lac des Îles Saturday afternoon before the storm hit. They were in a spot overlooking the lake when they saw a water spout develop. She said moments later, the water started to rise and the “massive mess” unfolded.

As Kuzior, her husband, daughter and daughter’s friend got in their vehicle to leave and head back to Goodsoil, trees started to come crashing down. She said deer and other animals were running across the road to escape and significant hail started to fall.

“My husband kept saying it was going to be fine. … We are okay,” she said. “My daughter and her friend were in the back and they were bawling. They were scared. They didn’t know what to expect.”

Volunteers with chainsaws headed to Murray Doell Campground to help remove downed trees and people stuck inside campers. (supplied photo/Melissa Kuzior)

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tyler.marr@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @JournoMarr

by Tyler Marr

‘It just flattened it’: Three injured after severe storm rips through Meadow Lake Provincial Park

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