It's been six months since a tornado roared through Long Plain First Nation, causing significant damage to the community.

The destruction was so extensive, about 800 community members had to leave their homes, and Chief Dennis Meeches says about 150 still haven't been able to return. He doesn't have a firm timeline on when that will happen.

"We just had about 55 return home a few weeks ago, so the 150 still remaining...I'm not sure if any of those will be home by Christmas, but we're still shooting for March 31st. That's our new date to have most of them home, but, again, we still might trickle in to the spring or summer before we get everybody home."

Dennis Meeches

Meeches feels the community's recovering well, even though members are still waiting to come home.

"We have a strong finance team, a strong housing team. We have a great relationship with I-NAC and the Red Cross. This has been our first major disaster, and I think we've done fairly well in terms of looking after the people, and working with in partnership with I-NAC and the Red Cross."

He adds the disaster's prompted them to examine their preparedness in the future.

"Because we live in Tornado Alley, we have to take efforts to put safeguards in place. And that's what we're working on right now -- an early-warning system, and even thinking about storm shelters, and updating our plan for major events. Our people pulled together, and did a great job looking after the needs of our band members that needed to be evacuated."

Meeches says they're working on an event later this month to honour the evacuees.