Meadow Lake park tornado clean-up to take all summer

The clean-up continues after two tornadoes caused extensive damage at Meadow Lake Provincial Park over the Canada Day long weekend.

In an update on Thursday, park manager Trevor Finlay explained there is still no timeline for when work will be over.

“Until we get a good, firm, solid plan in place into how we’re going to salvage this, I’m guessing we’ll be closed for the remainder of the summer,” he said.

The tornadoes packed wind speeds between 90 and 175 kilometres an hour Saturday night, downing trees, tossing campers and levelling camp facilities — including the bathrooms.

Finlay, who worked with Saskatchewan Wildfire Management for 20 years, said he’s never seen anything like this damage.

“This is just so much damage so quickly — it’s just overwhelming,” he explained.

It’s not clear at this point how much the clean-up effort will cost or who will foot the bill, according to Finlay.

He expects there could be some assistance from the provincial and, possibly, federal governments.

However, there is a silver lining as they wade through the damage: the community.

“I couldn’t even tell you how many people were there Saturday night helping us cut the trail end and bringing equipment over to help us open up the roads and get all the people that needed to get out of there,” Finlay said.

He added people from Goodsoil, Dorintosh, Pierceland, Meadow Lake and Cold Lake came to help through the weekend — some of them going as far as to open their homes to stranded campers.