Tornado turns family home to rubble near Melville, Sask.

What was supposed to be a calm, relaxing holiday Monday for a Saskatchewan family of four turned into a day of recovery and cleanup, after a tornado levelled their farmhouse just outside of Melville, Sask.

Jamie Simpson and her family lost everything in the blink of an eye after a tornado carved out a path of destruction on their farmyard.

"Our house was just thrownthroughout the field here, and it was very surreal and emotional.You can't imagine this is evergoing to happen to you," Simpsontold CBC News on Monday.

"You just thank God that you were safe and your family is safe, and this stuff can all be replaced. We can't."

Simpson's family and her parents both had houses on the samefarm property. The two children were already at her parents' house when the storm began to roll in.

She called her husband in from the field and they sawtornado warnings on the television.

That's when Simpsonand her husband crossed the property to go to her parents' house for safety. They met the kids and the parents there.Their land is located about 14 kilometres north of Melville.

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The house exploded, basically. It's very surreal.- Jamie Simpson

While huddled together at the parents' house, Simpson's mom saw a tree fly by the window. Then the door of the shop went by.

"My dad said, 'We all got to get to the bathroom,' so we all got in the bathroom and hunkered down until things cleared over," Simpson said.

After the storm

The Simpson's house was destroyed.

"It was loud, and the house was shaking, and you could hear the wind and the rain hitting the windows, and it didn't feel like a tornado, but it had to have been, just the way the damage is," Simpson said.

"The house exploded, basically. It's very surreal."

Saskatchewan home leveled by tornado

8 years ago

Duration 0:57

A farmhouse outside of Melville, Sask., was leveled by a tornado Sunday evening.

About 30 minutes after the storm,the sun came out, shining overbroken,downed and up-rooted trees.Theparents' house, where they sought shelter,stood relatively unharmed in the same prairie field.

After the disaster, an online fundraising campaignwas started for the family and hundreds of dollars were raised throughout the night.

By Tuesday morning,$10,600 had been raisedfor the Simpson family. This doubled the original goal of the campaign.

Physical donations have also been acceptedat the local hospital.People areurged todonate clothes and toys for hertwo children, becausethey weren't sure what could be salvaged from the wreckage.

Simpson said she's been overwhelmed by the response from her neighbours, adding she would do the same for them.

She said her family spent the morning searching for her daughter's favourite teddy bear and a blanket made by the girl'sgrandmother.

"My dad doesn't even know what to say. It's surreal, too. Everything we worked for is kind of gone in the blink of an eye, and you just have to pick up and keep on trucking," she said."You know us, that's what we do."

The family had been living in the home since 2001.

Saskatchewan has had a weekend of devastating weather, with tornadoes touching down nearMelville, about 150 kilometres northeast of Regina, andflash floods hittingYorktonin the province's southeast.