Tornado devastates Virden-area farm

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This article was published 08/08/2020 (1503 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SCARTH — Though eyewitness reports suggest it was only active for 10 to 15 minutes, Friday’s tornado in southwestern Manitoba cut a devastating swath of destruction through farmland near the community of Scarth, killing two people, injuring another, and leaving one property in particularly bad shape.

Giovanni Colangelo runs a grain farm right off of Highway 83, roughly 16 kilometres south of Virden, which stood in the direct path of the twister that started to take form around 8 p.m.

Manitoba storm chaser Jordan Carruthers saw the tornado bear down on the property from afar and witnessed the savage wind chew up bits of Colangelo’s grain silos.

“Quite a few grain bins from the farm were tossed into the field across the road,” he said. “I think that one farm yard was likely the only property that really got hit. Other than that, the tornado was in the field the entire time.”

Colangelo declined to talk on the record, but allowed reporters from the Sun to tour his property the following morning and document the extent of the devastation left in the tornado’s wake.

Not only was the area littered with uprooted trees, hydro poles and over various bits of debris, but a lot of Colangelo’s farming equipment was damaged beyond repair. One grain auger was completely unrecognizable, with the sheer force of Friday’s tornado bending it into a pretzel shape.

Grain silos were crumpled up like they were made of paper, with several of them being either toppled over or torn apart because of the wind.

The trailer of a semi-truck was also completely missing, with some locals theorizing that it had been carried off by the tornado. 

Luckily, nobody living on this site was hurt in the storm.

Throughout the morning, scores of Colangelo’s neighbours arrived on the scene to provide moral support and to assess the damage for themselves.

Friday’s tornado also claimed the lives of two Melita residents, a 18-year-old man and 18-year-old girl, who were driving along Highway 83 when the twister touched down.

A 54-year-old man from Sioux Valley Dakota First Nation was also caught in the storm and was rushed to a nearby hospital with serious, but non-life-threatening, injuries.

Life-long producer Bruce Gabrielle told the Sun that he has never witnessed devastation like this in all his years of farming in the region and described the scene on Colangelo’s property as “surreal.”

“I’ve seen damage from tornadoes, but nothing like this,” he said.

John Galvin was similarly shocked with what he saw Saturday morning and expressed concern about how the smaller bits of debris scattered through the region will affect the upcoming harvest for Colangelo and any other nearby producers. 

“There’s a lot of debris out in the fields,” he said. “We’ll have to have spotters in front of the combine or on the combine to watch for metal and stuff so we don’t ingest the debris.”

Environment Canada and investigators with Western University-based Northern Tornadoes Project eventually classified Friday’s tornado as an EF-2 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. 

As a hobbyist, Carruthers said this tornado is one of the most powerful twisters he’s witnessed in Manitoba since he started chasing storms 12 years ago.

Although he doesn’t think this section of the province will experience another tornado of this magnitude for the rest of the year, Carruthers said Westman residents should remain wary of more extreme weather to come in August. 

“Looking over the models, it looks like there could be a couple more severe days in the next week or two,” he said Saturday afternoon. “So we’ll definitely be out there keeping an eye out on things.” 

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