‘Hundreds of trees’ knocked down at campground north of P.A. during thunderstorm

EMMA LAKE A violent thunderstorm that hit a Saskatchewan campground in the middle of the night sent trees crashing onto trailers, vehicles and tents, trapping some campers inside as well as blocking the roads rescuers needed to reach them.

Terri Bjarnason said her camper at the Murray Point campground in Great Blue Heron Provincial Park, north of Prince Albert, shook as the storm intensified early Saturday, knocking her onto the bed.

Then she said an uprooted tree bisected the camper, with her on one side and her husband and two kids on the other.

“I didn’t know that a tree had come down. I just knew we were damaged and I thought we had rolled. I wasn’t sure if we were upside down or on our side or what had happened. I just knew we weren’t right anymore and I was in a very small space,” Bjarnason said.

The Lakeland Fire Department posted on Facebook that it responded to a call about a person trapped in a camper under a fallen tree just after midnight, but were told about more people trapped when they arrived at the park.

“There are hundreds of trees down and the damage is significant,” the department posted.

Everyone was rescued within 40 minutes, the post said.

Lyle Karasiuk, a spokesman for Parkland Ambulance, said paramedics were at the campground for several hours but no injuries were reported.

Sonnet McGuire, the park’s manager, said staff responded immediately with chainsaws so emergency crews could get in and people who wanted to leave could get out.

“Everybody seems to be doing OK. Very thankful when you see the damage that’s here. It’s a wonder that there weren’t serious injuries,” McGuire said.

Bjarnason said the storm began just as she and her husband were about to turn in for the night.

“I was Googling what you’re supposed to do in a tornado in a camper because I thought that’s what was coming at us,” Bjarnason said.

Destiny McPeek, another camper who was also heading to bed, was in her camper when the storm started. She said it felt like the camper lifted up for a moment.

The hail that accompanied the wind was so loud, she said, that she didn’t hear the tree land on her mother’s truck in the adjacent campsite.

A tree landed on a tent in a campsite across from hers but she said it somehow missed the people who were inside. A car a few campsites down was crushed.

Her three kids slept through it, but McPeek said her nine-yearold niece woke up and watched the storm with her.

“When you have a child awake with you, you pretend everything is perfect. I laid in bed after, thinking‘ We could have died,’ ” McPeek said.