And Now We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming...

I had a completely different post planned for today, but our day yesterday has derailed that completely.

I'm not quite sure where to begin...I feel like I should be making jokes about it to lighten the mood, but it still might be a little too soon...for me...I'm not even sure what to call it yet either. Neither does any of the weather networks...I've heard severe thunderstorms, plow winds (extremely strong straigh-line winds) and funnel clouds.

After what I experienced. the first two just don't seem to do it justice.

Yesterday The Boy, Dave and I went out to Twin Lakes Beach (one of the sites of last years flood for those of you on the up and up with Manitoban news) to my friend Jenny's cabin for a fun beach day!

We did have a great day! The sun was warm, there was a slight warm breeze and the water was delightful. We lounged on the beach, rode the Sea-Doo, went for boat rides and swam with the dog.

Mid afternoon the clouds started to look like rain and they were headed straight for us. So we packed up our gear and sat under the boat house until the rain started. And then it started to hail, so we ran into the cabin. Pea sized pieces at first and then the hail grew until it was the size of a quarter. It was pretty crazy! We were laughing and throwing bits of hail at each other. The Boy was worried about his truck so he parked it under a tree to shield it. Little did we know what was coming next.

Then the wind picked up and the rain started to fall harder. Water stared to pour in through the windows of the cabin. We tried to stuff them up with towels, but it didn't help. The towels got soaked in minutes and the water spilled onto the floor. At this point I started to worry. The windows weren't feeling so secure and the rain and wind and hail was abusing the poor little cabin. The sound was deafening. We were all freaking out. Jenny was trying to call her parents who were staying at another cabin with little luck when the window in the far bedroom broke and glass blew into the house. We ran and closed the door. The Boy was standing at the back door fixated on his truck and I kept yelling at him to come inside. Just as I turned around to give up on him he came inside and yelled "A tree just fell on my truck!" It was no small tree. This tree was huge!

We didn't have much time to think about the truck when We saw the boathouse (which we had been sheltering under not even an hour earlier) lift off it's foundation and slam onto the roof of the cabin!! The entire house shook. The power went out, all of the ceiling lights fell out and the rest of the front windows of the cabin broke. And the wind and rain and hail continued without apology. We were terrified. I just kept praying that it would end and that the cabin wasn't going to fall in on us. It was like being in a movie.

After all that we just sat and waited until the next thing. Whatever it was going to be. The Boy held Dave in his lap and held my hand. I tried to breath and stay as calm as I could so we could deal with whatever came next. Thankfully that was the worst of it. Eventually the storm started to die down. The hail stopped and the rain lightened to a trickle and the wind ceased to blow so hard. We emerged from the cabin to assess the damage to our things, because thankfully we were all ok.

The best news is that the tree didn't demolish our truck we were still able to drive it home. The worst news is that Jenny's family isn't sure whether their cabin is repairable any more. They didn't sustain too much damage after last years flood, but the combination of the two might just make it a tear down. Time will tell.

For the next two hours we cleaned up and spoke to the neighbours. Hydro came to fix the power and the fallen power lines. Fire trucks came to put out fires and police came to take pictures and reports. It was a bit of a haze. Overall there were minor injuries in the area. No one died, but the property damage was high. Some peoples cabins were blown apart like cardboard shacks and there were too many fallen trees to count.

I've heard now that the winds were 100 to 150km/hr (that's up to 93 miles an hour) and that Twin Lakes Beach (where we were) was hit harder than anywhere else in Manitoba. Here's a youtube video from the area yesterday that is similar to what we experienced:



I've uploaded one of my videos on youtube too:



I haven't been in shock that badly since my Dad died. And I have never been so scared in all my life. On the way home The Boy and I were mostly silent. We did talk a bit about what happened and we're so thankful that we're ok and it's just the truck that was damaged a little. It could have been a lot worse.


Lisa.xo