A homeowner in Winnipeg was left panicked after Wednesday night’s storm sent a large tree crashing into his home. “That tree came right through our living room,” said Gunnar Friedrich outside his Charleswood home, partially hidden under a large Poplar tree that had fallen on top of it. Friedrich said he was standing in his hallway Wednesday night when he heard what sounded like a branch snap, then a tree came crashing through his roof. “It was honestly just panic at that point. I wasn’t sure what to do,” he said, adding he called 911 and the fire department arrived shortly after. He said he doesn’t know what happens next, as there is currently a tree branch sticking out of his living room ceiling. “I just want to get the tree off my house ideally,” he said. Thousands without power: Hydro This comes as the clean-up from Wednesday night’s storm continues across southern Manitoba. Manitoba Hydro said following the storm around 28,000 customers were impacted by more than 500 outages across the province, with the majority of them in the Winnipeg area. “High winds, heavy rain and lightning brought down trees, poles and power lines,” Hydro said in a news release. In an update just before 5:30 p.m., Hydro said more than 10,000 customers had their power restored, but another 18,000 are still without power. Hydro notes some customers might remain without power overnight. “The damage to poles and power lines is extensive and spread across hundreds of separate outages, mostly in the City of Winnipeg. More outages have occurred throughout the day today due to already weakened trees falling on our lines, adding to the calls we’re responding to.” If people come across downed power lines, they are told to stay at least 10 metres away and immediately call 911. Manitoba Hydro’s full power outage map can be viewed online. Brian Proctor, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said the storm started in the southwest part of the province and quickly moved across the south, bringing with it “fairly significant conditions.” “Big winds is probably the biggest story right now,” said Proctor. “In general terms, it looks like a squall line coming across and it really produced some fairly significant winds, with the strongest winds we saw being 133 kilometres an hour at Brandon Airport.” He said the Winnipeg Airport got wind gusts of up to 94 km/h, but he believes it was stronger in other parts of the city, around 110 to 120 km/h. Manitoba has been hit with wild weather this summer, from strong winds that led to multiple tornadoes to torrential rainfall causing flooding in a number of communities. Proctor said the prairie provinces have all been hit by tumultuous weather this summer, with each having to deal with their own issues. “We saw some of those early storms in early June in Winnipeg that caused some issues and it’s sort of just been cycling that right through much of the summer. The other thing we’ve had this summer more than most years is we’ve had really almost unlimited amounts of moisture availability for these storms across many communities,” he said. As summer continues, Proctor is reminding people the province is not out of severe weather season yet, saying it is starting earlier and ending later, so Manitobans need to be prepared for all scenarios. With files from CTV News’ Joseph Bernacki, Taylor Brock and Kayla Rosen
