COLUMN: Flashback June 28, 1978 – Hope replaces despair as Aubigny residents rebuild

Tornadoes swept across southern Manitoba, during the late afternoon and early evening of June 19, leaving a path of destruction from stretching from Aubigny to Ste Anne. Aubigny, where the tornado first touched down at approximately 5:30 p.m,, was the worst hit in the storm. Residents had little time to take refuge, and at least 17 people were injured and taken to Morris Hospital for treatment.

Not one building in Aubigny was left untouched by the tornado, with damage estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The damage was heaviest around the church, which lost its bell tower and steeple.

From there, the tornado followed a northeasterly path, leaving in its wake extensive damage to an elderly persons’ home in Greenland, and to farms and homes in the Ste Anne area.

The violent storm took more than rooftops and trees in the wind and temporarily drained the small community of Aubigny of happiness and hope.

A woman resting on a pile of rubble next to the house she and her husband had been renovating managed a smile, saying they were a lot more fortunate than many of their neighbors.

She had been busy all morning, carting wheelbarrows of debris to a pile in the backyard. She gestured to the foundations of two buildings that once stood adjacent to their house.

The general store, next to this woman’s home, was moved four feet off its foundation. Loose wires, cement cinder blocks and wooden crates are scattered in the basement of the store, but most of the debris around the building had already been cleaned up by Mennonite Disaster Service crews.

Syd Reimer, Canadian representative for MDS, is indisputably one of the most popular men around the Aubigny community, the day after the storm. It seems people just can’t say enough good things about the Mennonite Disaster Service. Aubigny residents call them “amazing” or “wonderful”.

Cam King of the Red Cross says MDS is doing a “super cleanup job” and Ben D. Penner, local coordinator of the Emergency Measures Operation, comments that MDS got organized quicker than they did.

One woman, who spoke to Carillon reporter Carol Talbot, says she is sure many Aubigny residents would have just picked up and moved if it had not been for the efficient and prompt MDS aid they received.

Faced with the task of rebuilding their homes, the shock and the depression may have prompted families to run away, she said.

Reimer explains that MDS was organized 25 years ago, in Kansas, and has over the years grown into an international group with headquarters in Akron, Pennsylvania. Reimer describes what they do as “low-key practical evangelism,” operating on the philosophy that actions speak louder than words. One of the primary goals of MDS is to reach out to neighbors in need.

Reimer reports MDS crews were moving furniture and boarding up houses at Aubigny “before tornado winds had died down.”

Radio announcements Monday night brought about 340 volunteers to Aubigny the following morning, despite the fact some MDS crews had barely returned from tornado clean-up in Emo, Ontario.

Teams were arranged and assigned tasks that suited their abilities. Jobs included cleaning debris from fields and buildings, repairing and painting buildings, electrical and plumbing repairs, tearing down condemned buildings, arranging credit and negotiating with insurance companies.

Life goes on for Aubigny residents. The community is alive with the activity of rebuilding. Saws buzz, CB radios crackle, men shout to one another over the banging of hammers, trucks rumble towards the dump, where a haze from burning debris hangs in the hot air.

Determination replaces the shock of loss. Decisions are being made about rebuilding, repairing, or tearing down and starting over again.