The Town of Eston continues to clean up the debris and assess damages that ensued following the abrupt and destructive storm that passed through the community of Sunday evening.

On Monday, SaskPower crews worked to rebuild a line of power poles that were taken out by the storm in order to restore power back to homes and businesses, many of which were without power since the storm hit on Sunday.

The Town confirmed that they were successful with their efforts and power was returned to many in the area by 6:30 Monday night, with the whole town being back on the grid by 9:00 pm. With crews still tending to some maintenance the following day, there were brief outages experienced on Tuesday as well.

On Monday it was reported that one home had been lost and Adrienne Mason, Administrative Clerk with the Town of Eston, shared that is the only total loss that has been reported.

“There was a lot of damage, especially in the southwest corner, but we have only heard of the one house that was lost, otherwise people are just working to put through claims to repair the damage to their homes and we are still in the process of getting all the numbers together and working through the claim process”.

The house that was lost did have one woman occupant. Mason said the Town did receive a phone call from the people the woman is staying with and shared they will be looking into housing options and collectively, they will make sure she has a place to stay.

Mason also confirmed that part of the roof on the rink was affected by the storm and they will be going through the appropriate channels to get the repairs completed.

As far as injuries sustained, it was reported to West Central Online that one woman had broke her arm and Mason said The Town also got word of the same instance, however, no other injuries have been confirmed at this time.

In-spite of the sudden upheaval caused by Sunday’s storm, Mason said the Town is bouncing back thanks in large part to the generosity, of not only the residents of Eston, but the surrounding communities as well.

“We are just extremely grateful and thankful for all the surrounding communities who have offered help. I’ve had so many messages from people from various locations just offering help and different services – and it was just really amazing to see how many people came together in our time of need. Our town rallied together to do all the clean up and it was just really amazing to see.”

Ken Francis, MLA for Kindersley, went to visit the Eston on Monday as well and said, “In true rural Saskatchewan fashion, the community of Eston and surrounding areas came together and just got to work and started with the clean-up”.

Francis added that he did heard from other officials upon arriving in the town, is Eston did have a good emergency measures plan set out and followed it quite well, which helped significantly in the wake of the storm.

At this point, Mason said it is just a matter of cleaning up the debris and filing insurance claims or making other arrangements to facilitate the needed repairs.

No town or recreational services have been reported as being disrupted, yesterday, the rain put a damper on the swimming lessons but Mason said otherwise, everything is back up and running.

 

Photos of Eston on Monday, July 15, 2019, courtesy of Ken Francis, MLA Constituency of Kindersley.