Tuesday's sudden onset of stormy weather left many people stranded in communities around the Pembina Valley as whiteout driving conditions left visibility at zero at times; especially, on open roadways with no shelter. The weather left many drivers deciding to stop in communities away from home. The people of Manitou are one of the communities who opened their doors to weary travelers.
President of the Manitou Community Arena Harry Hiebert explained how he decided to help.
"I was going through some Facebook comments of one of the ladies in town, she said, 'Where can we send people if they're stranded in town?' So, I put a post on there that said I will go open up the Manitou Community Arena and I'll hang around there till about nine 9:30 and see if anybody shows up. My plan was to open the kitchen up, as well, because we're fully stocked for the winter. We have burgers and fries; if we needed to feed anybody, and within that small amount of time after I had said that I had 4 or 5 ladies in town offer to come cook, and I had many people offer to bring bedding. It was very overwhelming, actually, at the time."
Hiebert recalled his own drive home from work.
"I work at Janzen Chev in Winkler, and it took me an hour and a half to get home. I just followed a semi; I just stayed behind him all the way, so I was one of the lucky ones. I think I counted 20 cars in the ditch on the way home. I was lucky. I got home and then we decided to open up the rec center up from there. We only had two people, which kind of surprised me, I thought we might get quite a few more but there I think the church kind of beat us to it; most of the people went there."
He said, he wasn't the only one coordinating efforts to help.
"The gas station had people going to one of the churches in town, and I think more people went to the church than the rec center. We only had two people show up at the rec center and I just brought them to my house for the night. They are from Altona, they were in Boissevain visiting family in and they were from Altona and they made it as far as Manitou. And one of the guys at the rink got them to my house and I phoned my wife and said, 'Darlene, you better make up a bed, we’ve got some company coming.'"
Hiebert added, as they got talking, they found out they had connections.
"It was quite a connection we had with the people that were at our place. I found out that the lady her maiden name was Fuller, and I went to school with her brothers, Kirk and Dean, in Boissevain. So, we had a connection already."
When looking back at all the ways people in Manitou stepped up to help, Hiebert said it was overwhelming, but it definitely made him feel good.