Windstorm rips through Hazenmore, downs trees and power lines

As a storm photographer, Beth Allan has seen damage in Saskatchewan towns before.

She admits what she saw in the village of Hazenmore on Tuesday shocked even her.

“The first thing we noticed was tree branches down everywhere … big branches and small branches, just strewn across the road, on top of roofs, everything like that,” she explained.

A video of the worst damage in Hazenmore, SK #skstorm pic.twitter.com/z9JsQr5igA

— Beth Allan (@adolwyn) July 8, 2020

Hazenmore is about an hour’s drive southeast of Swift Current. Allan said the trip to the village was a challenge in and of itself.

“We were having a difficult time keeping our vehicle on the road. The winds were so intense that I would not have wanted to be a tree anywhere in Saskatchewan,” she said.

A potentially dangerous situation arose when a tree branch blew into a power line and caught fire.

“As the power surged through the lines, it started flaring, arcing and sparking really bright, bright, bright … It looked like you were looking at the surface of the sun. Once that line had finished, it continued down the line and caught one of the branches on fire,” she said.

Here’s the footage from Hazenmore, SK from earlier today – trees on the power lines led to the lines shorting and catching fire. This is the video @tweetsinpajamas took while I was on the phone to 911. #skstorm 7:33pm pic.twitter.com/48GfTWPQPw

— Beth Allan (@adolwyn) July 8, 2020

Wind warnings were still in place for many areas of Saskatchewan on Wednesday.

Gusts up to 90 kilometres per hour were expected in the afternoon, but the winds were expected to gradually die off into the evening.