Craig Aitchison was already late on his seeding because of the moisture that hammered much of the province this spring. That rain; however, isn't much compared to what recently happened, although it's the rain that has caused the most recent damage.
A major storm brought strong winds and heavy rain across a large swath of southwestern Manitoba and the Interlake on June 19. Environment Canada issued tornado watches for the region, although there were no reports of a tornado touching down. Craig farms near Foxwarren and his farm was right in the thick of things.
Lasting only about 15 minutes, it was like something Aitchison has only seen a couple of times in the past.
"We knew a storm was coming but we didn't expect it to be as bad as it was," said Aitchison. "We saw the roof was lifting, it was very intense for a short period of time."
What Craig didn't realize until after the fact is what happened to his bins. Four 24,000-bushel grain bins and several hopper-bottom bins blew over on Aitchison's farm. While Craig continues to wait for an assessment on damages -- which he expects will take quite some time with all of the damage -- he estimates it will be in the $400,000 range.
Thousands of people lost their power during the storm across the province and the Aitchison family was one of them, they just got their power back four days after the fact.
The family will now have plenty of added work to do over the summer months before harvest.
"We've got to get all these bins replaced, because this is all my grain storage, and we have to get them all replaced before harvest," offered Aitchison.
The Aitchison family has been farming near Foxwarren for 20 years and Craig can only remember a storm in 2005 that was as close to the one last month. However, that storm only took out some maple trees as the family only had small bins at the time.
"We were recovered from that one and then this," he said. "It is what it is; we'll do what needs to be done."
