PELLY — A powerful tornado tore through Pelly on June 28, snapping SaskPower poles like dominoes and leaving a path of destruction along Highway 8. Homes, outbuildings and trees were heavily damaged as residents watched the storm carve through the community in a matter of minutes.
By morning, the sound of chainsaws and heavy equipment had replaced the roar of the tornado. Neighbours, friends and family members were already hard at work clearing debris, salvaging belongings and helping those whose properties were hit the hardest.
SaskPower crews were also on scene early, assessing extensive damage to the electrical grid and working to restore power to the community.
For Rebecca Konowalchuk, the devastation became apparent as soon as she returned to her fiancé's property after the storm.
"The roof is laying in the backyard," she said.
Konowalchuk was at the family's restaurant when the tornado formed.
"It started up in the field right across from the restaurant and made its way this way," she said. "I did see it."
After the storm passed, she returned to find significant damage to the home.
Standing among the wreckage, she said the emotional toll of seeing the destruction was immediate.
"I cried," she said.
Parts of the house were torn apart, with sections of the roof and walls ripped away by the powerful winds. While her own home on the other side of town escaped damage, the house belonging to her fiancé sustained major losses.
Just a short distance away, Randy Finnie and his family had only seconds to react after spotting the tornado approaching.
"I saw the tornado go across that shed and peel it," Finnie said. "Then I yelled to get inside."
Finnie, his wife and their two children, ages 13 and 14, rushed from the garage into their basement cold cellar as the storm intensified.
The family sheltered underground for only a few minutes.
"It was like three minutes," he said.
When they emerged, the landscape had changed completely.
"We came back upstairs and all our windows were intact, everything was good. Then we looked outside and, yeah, everything was gone."
The tornado narrowly missed the family's home.
"It just missed the house … about 20 feet."
Trees were snapped or uprooted across the property, and damage was widespread. Finnie said help arrived almost immediately.
"My landlord, Lamar Kane, brought everybody over here with the skid steer, telehandler and excavator," he said. "We cleared everything out of the yard."
For longtime area resident Ken Hutchins, the storm was unlike anything he had experienced in decades.
Hutchins and his wife were inside their home when the tornado struck.
"It was calm and then it started to rain and the wind was blowing real hard, and then all of a sudden it was over with," he said.
The tornado stripped shingles from the roof of their home and completely destroyed nearby buildings.
"It destroyed the shop and the garage," Hutchins said. "The shop is gone."
The force of the winds carried parts of the garage far from the property.
"If you go a mile and a half down, it's in the bush over there," he said. "That's from the garage."
Despite living in the area for half a century, Hutchins said he had never witnessed anything similar.
"Never. Not in 50 years have I seen anything like that here."
While the cleanup is only beginning, residents say they are grateful no one was seriously injured.
Across the community, neighbours have been lending equipment, clearing fallen trees and helping families sort through damaged property.
"It's going to take a while," Hutchins said as crews worked around him. "We'll probably be here for a good month or so trying to clean everything up."
Across Pelly, that sentiment was shared by many residents who spent the day cleaning up, checking on neighbours and beginning the difficult task of rebuilding after one of the most destructive storms the community has ever seen.
