Tornado destroys Manitoba family’s home: ‘It’s gone’
Posted June 29, 2026 6:36 pm.
Last Updated June 29, 2026 7:25 pm.
A Manitoba family is trying to come to terms with the thought they may never step foot in their home ever again.
The Brown family home, south of Rossburn, Man., was severely damaged by a tornado that touched down Sunday evening.
The extent of the damage is so bad, owner Brian Brown says it may be beyond repair.
“We retired in 2004 with the sole purpose of renovating this house,” Brown said. “It took us 10 years to renovate the house, and now it’s gone, so your big dream is gone.
“I guess there’s times when I don’t believe it. But then when you look around, you really don’t know where you’re gunna go, what you’re gunna do.”
Brown says the tornado hit around 7:30 p.m. when he noticed the first tree fall. Brown and his wife Bernadine say it all happened within a matter of seconds.
“We hit the floor, and two windows and a door just blew out at once, and every tree that you see here just came down almost instantaneous, just one big loud noise, and by the time you got off it was over,” he recounted.
Brown says his insurance company was scheduled to visit Monday afternoon, and he intends to make a claim.
Another property across the road also suffered a damaged roof, but the Browns’ home took the brunt of it.
Members of the Canadian Severe Storms Laboratory (CSSL) were on hand Monday, gathering information for the purpose of better engineering standards and forecasting across Canada.
“It’s quite strong, you don’t usually see this kind of damage with tornados in Canada,” said Dylan Painchaud-Niemi with the CSSL.
“We’re just starting out the survey, so we’re going to have to figure out exactly how strong it is, but looking around it definitely isn’t a weak tornado, so we’re here to figure out exactly how to estimate the wind speeds.”
