2 tornadoes now confirmed in southern Manitoba after Tuesday's torrential storm

2 tornadoes now confirmed in southern Manitoba after Tuesday's torrential storm

Nearly 11,000 insurance claims for damaged vehicles made to MPI

A major storm system that thrashed through southern Manitoba this week is now confirmed to have spawned two tornadoes, while several other reports remain under investigation.

One tornado, about 30 kilometres southeast of Winnipeg near Ste. Anne, was confirmed by Environment Canada on Wednesday morning. The other, east of Morris near Dufrost, about 50 kilometres south of Winnipeg, was confirmed later in the day.

The storms left a trail of destruction that included floods, downed power lines and trees, and thousands of damaged vehicles from hailstones that ranged in size from nickels to tennis balls in Winnipeg, and as big as baseballs in some rural areas.

Maria Campos, a vice-president at Manitoba Public Insurance, said nearly 11,000 claims for damaged vehicles had been made as of 5 p.m. Wednesday, "and we expect that continue to continue to climb today as well."

It is likely to be the Crown corporation's largest-ever claim event, surpassing the 2023 hailstorm that brought in just shy of 16,000 claims and cost MPI roughly $140 million.

Campos didn't yet have a breakdown as to how many of the claims from Tuesday's storm are from Winnipeg versus rural areas, or a breakdown of the cause of damage — hail, trees limbs or water on flooded streets.

Campos is asking the public for "a bit of grace" as MPI deals with the deluge of claims.

"We are looking at centralizing a hail centre in order to meet customer demand, and we will get back to folks as soon as we possibly can. It's all hands on deck."

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Meanwhile, Manitoba Hydro is making "pretty great progress" in restoring power to the 32,000 customers initially impacted by power outages, said spokesperson Peter Chura.

"This is probably the worst summer storm impact that certainly we can think of in recent memory, just in terms of the sheer number of outages," he said.

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About 1,400 Winnipeg customers remained without electricity as of Thursday morning, down from 20,000, "and that's despite that sort of bonus round of thunderstorms we had last night that slowed some things down."

Those still in the dark in Winnipeg are in the West End, North Kildonan and the Maginot area of St. Boniface, Chura said.

About 2,000 customers in other parts of the province are still facing outages as crews are having difficulty reaching some areas due to washed out roads, he said.

In Minitonas, in western Manitoba, the flooding from a weekend storm was so bad that some people remain without power because the electrical panels in their homes were damaged.

"But we're working with the homeowners today to try to get the power back on," Chura said. Hydro's hope is to have the lights back on for everyone inside and outside of Winnipeg by the end of Thursday.

Winnipegger Dan Leonard has been living without power in his West End home since 5 p.m. Tuesday. He's also living with a flooded basement that smells like mould and sewage, and he can't do anything about it without electricity to run a pump.

"I'm worried about my kids and what they're breathing, and what the long-term damage is. Certainly there's going to be cost associated with all of these things," he said.

His situation also means all of his refrigerated food went bad and had to be thrown out, and he has no hot water.

Leonard was also in the process of renovating his basement and had just put up new drywall on Monday.

"That will need to get ripped out again. So I don't know if it's covered by insurance or not,” he said. "Just not the best."

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But his bigger worry, he said, is for the broader West End area and those who don't have the means to face the stresses and struggles the storm has wrought.

"It's a very mixed-income neighbourhood, and there's a lot of people who don't necessarily have the financial means to cover all the damage in their basement," he said.

"Throwing out a fridge full of food and buying it again" is also expensive, said Leonard, adding one neighbour is going through the lengthy outage with a newborn.

He recognizes Hydro is stretched thin dealing with outages and he's trying to have compassion, but that is also wearing thin, he said.

Microbiologist Jason Tetro, author of the book The Germ Files, cautions people to be extremely careful around basements backed up with raw sewage.

"If it's coming up through the sewers, then you're dealing with absolutely all the human microbiological waste," he said. "I hate saying this, but it's the absolute truth — you have a petri dish where you used to live."

The first instinct might be to rush in to save things, but Tetro says that's a bad idea. It takes a very short time for mould and concentrations of bacteria to grow in that warm, humid environment.

"Initially, the waters may pose a gastrointestinal problem, but as things get more and more concentrated, because it's growing, now you're going to have skin problems, eye problems, respiratory problems," he said.

If you're going to make an attempt at cleaning anything, get proper protection to cover your arms, legs and feet, and wear an N95 mask and goggles, he said.

“But at the end of the day, when it comes to finally getting it to a point where you can live in it again, you're really going to need professionals. A bucket of bleach is not going to help you."

This week's storm started south of Emerson in the U.S. and moved north through Manitoba, cutting a swath up the Red River Valley and into the southern Interlake.

It drowned Stonewall, just north of Winnipeg, with 255 millimetres of rain while Petersfield and Clandeboye, both northeast of Stonewall, were soaked with 229 and 220 millimetres, respectively.

Tornado touches down in southern Manitoba

Winnipeg saw 122 millimetres and many other weather stations in the south in the range of 50-100 with dozens more getting up to 50 millimetres.

Winds clocked in at 130 km/h in the Deloraine area, near the Saskatchewan border, while gusts in excess of 100 km/h were reported in several places and Winnipeg seeing a peak of 94 km/h.

There were numerous tornado reports in the valley and surrounding region, but so far just the two have been confirmed. Numerous funnel clouds were also reported, Environment Canada said.

Darren Bernhardt has been with CBC Manitoba since 2009 and specializes in offbeat and local history stories. He is the author of two bestselling books: The Lesser Known: A History of Oddities from the Heart of the Continent, and Prairie Oddities: Punkinhead, Peculiar Gravity and More Lesser Known Histories.

With files from Julie Buckingham