If Katie could talk, Trudy and Eldon Wig would know exactly what their dog thought of its wild ride during a recent storm.
Katie, doghouse and all, was swept up in a wind most locals are certain was a tornado but Environment Canada has said was likely a plow wind and transported across the Wig farmyard southeast of Eastend, Sask., to the nearby riverbank.
“She seems fine,” Trudy Wig said about the dog on July 4, several days after the storm destroyed barns and Quonsets and knocked out power service for 49 hours. Winds were clocked at 130 km-h.
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Three trees fell on the Wigs’ old home while they huddled in the basement.
“We totally lost our barn,” Wig said. “There’s just a cement slab there now.”
The barn was found in pieces in a hay field across the river.
“We’ve got it cleaned up because (Eldon) had to start cutting hay,” Trudy said. “He made the first round and got a flat tire.”
Brad Harper was sleeping in a trailer between a shop and a farmhouse in the area known as the Lower Bench south of Eastend. He’s convinced a tornado swept between the buildings leaving him safe but demolishing the Quonset.
“It drove an auger right through the wall,” he said.
Despite the commotion, he slept through the storm.
