Alonsa farmer stressed, depressed over slow recovery after tornado as winter approaches

An Alonsa, Man. farmer whose property was heavily damaged by a tornado this past summer says he's depressed and stressed by the slow pace of the cleanup and what he called a lack of support from the government.

On Aug. 3, a tornado destroyed a house and several outbuildings on Russell Cabak's farm, hurling debris and equipment into nearby Lake Manitoba. Now, Cabak is racing to finish rebuilding his tractor shop before winter fully settles in.

"As far as the government, [emergency measures organization], or anybody helping, they haven't stepped forward yet. They said they might, but they're still looking into it," Cabak said.

The tornado struck several properties in the the Alonsa, Silver Ridge and Margaret Bruce Beach areas and killed one man in the community about 165 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.

Cabak feels like the government response here has been slow compared to what he saw after a tornado-hit communities around Ottawa in September. The Ontario government gave the city of Ottawa $1.5 million for the cleanup.

Cabak still has yet to clean up some of his barns that blew over and hasn't filled in the basement of the house that was destroyed.

"Most of my buildings are gone except my main house. All my barns are gone, my shed."

He expects his losses to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"[I'm] feeling kind of depressed and tired of everything going on," Cabak said. "I'm tired of everything already. Tired and stressed out."

In an email statement, a spokesperson for the province said: "The Manitoba government remains engaged with the communities affected by the August tornado.

"Those impacted may contact Manitoba EMO directly at 1-888-267-8298 or 204-945-3050 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday with questions about claims and other issues."

Stan Asham, reeve for the RM of Alonsa, says much of the cleanup has already been completed, but the damage to Cabak's farm was severe.

"Russell Cabak lost lots of stuff. I think there's some smaller pieces of machinery they haven't even found yet," Asham said.

Cabak said the province sent Amphibex machines equipped with rakes to comb the lake, and although much of it was cleared out, debris continues to wash up on shore.

He says he will have to sell some of his cattle in December after losing more than 200 hay bales in the twister.

Asham says the recovery will likely take years and expects the total cost of the damage will be in the millions.