'It was totally gone': Thousands of insurance claims filed in Sask. after summer storms
Jeff Andersen has lived in the Lumsden area for 14 years and he says he has never had a storm pass through like the one on July 22.
“I sort of looked at the shop, expecting maybe some trees to be down and the power to be out. I looked where the shop was and it was totally gone. All that was left was some of the contents that were inside of it,” Andersen told CTV.
“The electrical is ripped right out of the panel and everything like that, so I didn’t know if there was live wires or anything down there, I couldn’t see too much, but there was debris thrown everywhere. It was a steel-covered insulated shop. We had steel and wood and insulation up to 300 feet away.”
Andersen said there was plenty of other minor damage around the property such as a toppled calf shelter, but his house was fine, and all of his family, including cows and dogs, were safe.
Andersen said he had heard there was a storm heading his way, but he never expected it to be as big as it was.
“We got a text from a neighbour saying it was hailing like crazy and it was windy, and they had gone down to their crawl space because they were afraid of the wind and all that,” Andersen said.
“When I came home I wasn’t expecting that much, maybe some trees down and the power I had heard was out. Just shock when I got there.”
Andersen is in the process of filing an insurance claim for his shop, and he is not alone.
According to SGI there have been nearly 2,200 claims reported so far since the storm and another which occurred on July 27.
“It’s entirely possible that more claims will come in as people examine their property and understand that they may have enough damage to warrant making a claim with SGI,” Tyler McMurchy, manager of media relations with SGI said.
SGI said of the 2,190 claims, 1,562 were for vehicles, and 628 were for property damage.
“The vast majority of that was caused as a result of damage resulting from hail. On Thursday July 22 in the Foam Lake area we saw a large number of hail losses. We saw some golf ball-sized hail, and maybe in some places a little bigger than that,” McMurchy said.
Kyle Fougere, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), said the province experienced a low-pressure system that moved through the province on July 22, causing the storms..
“We saw some pretty wide-spread thunderstorms on that day. There was widespread wind reports extending all the way from Lloydminster which recorded 115 kilometres an hour, down to Regina which had 140 kilometre-an-hour gusts, and all the way up to Saskatoon with 96 kilometres per hour,” Fougere told CTV news.
“There was also localized flooding in Regina, and some very large hail was reported. About three hours to the east of Saskatoon in a place called Okla Saskatchewan, there was tennis ball hail which is 6.5 centimetre hail reported.”
On Tuesday the province saw another storm that brought more hail, wind, and damage.
“Kamsack Beach reported golf ball hail, and there was quite a bit of damage out of Pelly Saskatchewan with ping pong-sized hail that shattered windows and created a lot of damage in the area,” Fougere said.
Fougere said with some hot weather coming in the form of a high-pressure system this long weekend, Saskatchewan could expect to see some more storms after the holiday.
“When that ridge of high-pressure does break down as we go into next week we’ll have to be on the watch for severe thunderstorms then as well,” Fougere told CTV.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction overturned by N.Y. appeals court
New York's highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction, reversing a landmark ruling of the #MeToo era in determining the trial judge improperly allowed women to testify about allegations against the ex-movie mogul that weren't part of the case.
BREAKING Honda to get up to $5B in govt help for EV battery, assembly plants
Honda is set to build an electric vehicle battery plant next to its Alliston, Ont., assembly plant, which it is retooling to produce fully electric vehicles, all part of a $15-billion project that is expected to include up to $5 billion in public money.
MPP Sarah Jama asked to leave Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
MPP Sarah Jama was asked to leave the Legislative Assembly of Ontario by House Speaker Ted Arnott on Thursday for wearing a keffiyeh, a garment that is banned at Queen’s Park.
CTE: Researchers believe widespread brain injury may contribute to veteran suicide rate
Researchers are working to better understand if some Canadian military veterans may be suffering from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, also known as CTE -- a disorder previously found in the brains of professional football and hockey players after their death.
1 arrested in northern Alberta during public shelter order
Residents of John D'Or Prairie, a community on the Little Red River Cree Nation in northern Alberta, were told to take shelter Thursday morning during a police operation.
Secret $70M Lotto Max winners break their silence
During a special winner celebration near their hometown, Doug and Enid shared the story of how they discovered they were holding a Lotto Max ticket worth $70 million and how they kept this huge secret for so long.
Remains from a mother-daughter cold case were found nearly 24 years later, after a deathbed confession from the suspect
A West Virginia father is getting some sense of closure after authorities found the remains of his young daughter and her mother following a deathbed confession from the man believed to have fatally shot them nearly two decades ago.
New deep-water channel allows first ship to pass Key bridge wreckage in Baltimore
The first cargo ship passed through a newly opened deep-water channel in Baltimore on Thursday after being stuck in the harbor since the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed four weeks ago, halting most maritime traffic through the city's port.
First in Canada procedure performed at London, Ont. hospital
A London man has become the first person in Canada to receive a robotic assisted surgery on his spine. Dave Myeh suffered from debilitating, chronic back pain that led to sciatica in his right now and extreme pain in his lower back.