The town of Balcarres is picking up branches, leaves and tree limbs after a severe thunderstorm torn through the community early Monday morning.

"I heard the rain start and so I got up, I had my window opened and I got up and shut my window,” said Randy How, Balcarres resident. “When I looked out I saw the wind starting to pick up and I thought ‘oh this doesn’t look good’ and then it got higher and higher and then there was a flash of lighting and that's when I saw my fence was down with this wind."

The strong winds uprooted trees and knocked out power to half of the town. Environment and Climate Change Canada said the closet station it has to Balcarres is in Indian Head, and that station tracked winds at 70 km per hour. The weather agency also said this same weather system brought winds up to 100 km per hour in other parts of the province.

Many in the community of around 600 people worked together to pick up the branches and tree debris together.

"It's Saskatchewan right,” said Kent Esplin, Mayor of Balcarres. “Everyone pulls together in time of crisis and that's exactly what Balcarres does, they help out their neighbours and they do what they can to make the town clean again and get some of this stuff cleaned up."

 

Echo Valley Provincial Park was also battered by the high winds on Monday.

"Some trees down on vehicles,” said Tonya Lawson, Park Manager. “Very lucky nobody was hurt and very minimal damage to actually any infrastructure."

SaskPower said to check its twitter for updates.