A year after the flood: Calgary’s new sense of community
Community spirit a lasting legacy of disaster
— When the great flood of 2013 brought Calgary to its knees, Heather Thompson knew she had to do something. “I’m not cut out for heavy lifting and I can’t be around dust and mould because of my asthma,” says the native Calgarian. “As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t be one of those people helping with the cleanup.”
What she could offer was her expertise in acupuncture, an ancient form of Chinese medicine that followers say can help with everything from alleviating stress and improving mood to dealing with a variety of physical maladies.
Not long after the waters receded, Thompson and her team of licensed acupuncturists with the YY C Acupuncture Relief Project hosted temporary clinics in a variety of spots within the city and other flood-affected communities.
“This city experienced a visceral change,” says Thompson, who co-founded the free service initiative with fellow acupuncturist Vanessa Ebertz. “We’ve helped more than 1,600 people so far this year and we’re committed to working through to the end of June.”
As the one-year anniversary of the worst natural disaster in Alberta’s history approaches, Thompson and many other volunteers — including those from such organizations as Samaritan’s Purse and the Canadian Red Cross — are still out there, helping their neighbours heal in its wake.
The bulk of those that gave their time and energy last summer, though, have long since returned to their regular lives. As June 20th approaches, those not directly affected by the flood may reflect back not on the disastrous effects, but those heady early days when Calgary’s brilliant community spirit shone for all the world to see.
The post-flood phenomenon of neighbours helping neighbours was indeed one of the most glorious episodes in our young city’s history. Less than 48 hours after the angry current engulfed major sections of the city, thousands of so-called ordinary citizens descended on those communities with offers of assistance.
Within days, they’d bought out the last pair of rubber boots in town and also made work gloves as carce luxury, as they joined in human assembly lines of drywall haulers and garbage gatherers; they formed bucket brigades to empty out basements of what was likely millions of tons of thick, wet mud and sewage; and those who couldn’t help in the messier jobs found other ways to pitch in.
Moms like Jenna Gillespie — her infant son carried in her backpack — came out from their dry suburban enclaves to haul strollers filled with coffee and doughnuts for busy residents and volunteers; kids like 12-year-old Josh Leacock and 10-year-old Chloe Parker manned makeshift free cafés on Inglewood and Sunnyside street corners, handing out water and coffee for emergency workers and military personnel. And then there was young urbanite AnilKarim, who, after getting help with his flooded Mission apartment, formed his own volunteer organization called Mission Possible, one of the biggest grassroots groups to fan out to such hard-hit Alberta communities as High River and the Siksika First Nation.
The first call for volunteers went out three days after the downtown was submerged in brown, sludgy water. A few hundred were expected to register at McMahon Stadium; what turned up was a happy mob of more than 2,500. Local celebrities such as hockey greats Lanny McDonald and Hayley Wickenheiser and country artists Paul Brandt and George Canyon toiled alongside regular folk; a lineup of federal politicians including Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau dropped in for a few hours of work to show their support for what had become a world famous cause.
While some marvelled at this supposedly made-in-Calgary miracle of human kindness, others weren’t surprised that such altruistic actions were unfolding in every community hit by the raging flood waters. After all, Calgary has long boasted the highest per capita of volunteers in the country. When our city needs to rally behind an event, like the 1988 Winter Olympics or that annual summer ritual of rodeo known as the Calgary Stampede, lassoing a thousand eager helpers is a snap.
Those working on the front lines of disaster recovery, however, are well aware that such everyday heroism, as collective as it was in Calgary, isn’t unique to the Alberta flood. Speaking at a post-flood symposium at the University of Calgary last fall, psychiatrist Dr. Michael Trew described the psychological journey experienced by the community, the initial hero phase leading into periods of disillusionment and depression as people take the slow road to recovery. “We know from the research we’ve been looking into that the impacts from this will go on for quite a while yet, particularly on the mental and emotional side. That’s what takes the longest,” said Trew.
For those whose homes were under water, this momentous anniversary will be a time to remember the silver linings that peeked through the dark clouds of misfortune — but also to heal
“A lot of our neighbours said that without all that help, they would have burned down the house and left town in despair.”
Hary Vandervlist
from a crisis that shook the very foundations of what it means to have a home.
Harry Vandervlist, whose Bowness home was in the water’s destructive path, knows he and his wife Dianne are right on schedule when it comes to those phases. “We’ve been completely preoccupied with repairing our home,” says the University of Calgary English professor. “That took to the end of the January, so it’s only been the last while we’ve had time to take our breath and stop and think.”
Still, Vandervlist says that on the anniversary, he will also reflect on those people who came to his aid in a cleanup that would have been too overwhelming on his own.
One morning sticks out in his mind. It was a day or two after the flood and he’d only had a couple of hours of sleep the night before. Before any of the volunteers arrived, Vandervlist attempted to pull up some soaking carpet on his own. “I had no strength in my arms, sweat was pooling in my eye sockets. If it had been like this every day, I think I would have just walked away.”
He wasn’t alone in this desperate thought.
“A lot of our neighbours said that without all that help, they would have burned down the house and left town in despair, or jumped in the river,” says Vandervlist.
While the post-flood cleanup and rebuilding has often been a minefield of insurance company rules and government mazes — which has made for more than a few tense moments as residents fought to be heard — Vandervlist says the community cohesion that was sparked in neighbourhoods like his seem to have had a lasting effect. His community association has held several gatherings, and “we’ve been to a few dinners with neighbours we didn’t know before.”
They’ve also forged a common front to help one another get government assistance, as well as to form a unified voice. “That side’s been great because you realize no one’s going to look out for you without being held to account,” he says.
The evolution from volunteer euphoria to political mobilization has given people like Emma May a new sense of community commitment and obligation. May, who has lived in Elbow Park for most of her life, was also a recipient of much kindness and generosity.
“There are incredible people that live here,” says the local realtor, who has put in 30-hour volunteer weeks for most of the past 11 months as the president of the Calgary River Communities Action Committee, an organization whose members include residents from several flood-hit communities.
“We turned that feeling of community spirit into a collective voice for action,” says May. “There’s a real bond that’s formed, a feeling that we’re in this together. That said, we’re all pretty tired and worried about what will happen on the anniversary.”
Some, like Heather Thompson, aren’t interested in speculating whether the fierce community spirit created by the disaster will last. As June 20 approaches, she is too busy helping flood victims get through another bump on their road to recovery.
“What we know from mental health research is that it takes six months to a year before we even see the full effects of something like this,” says Thompson, who is preparing her acupuncture teams to mobilize in June (see facebook.com/CalgaryFloodAcupunctureReliefProject for locations and times).
“Seeing people improve is what keeps me motivated to keep going. I still think the service is needed.”
It’s thanks to those like Thompson that a year after the flood, the sign seen outside a Bowness home last summer still holds true for many: “We lost some stuff, we gained a community.”