Souls Harbour forced to shut doors without kitchen, heat, lights

Souls Harbour Rescue Mission was turning people away for the night Tuesday due to a widespread power outage.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the shelter said it had shut down its kitchen and shelter for the evening because of the outage.

“There’s no ability to cook and there’s no ability to keep it warm,” said marketing manager Deana Struble.

Struble said staff waited until 2 p.m. for the power to come back on. When it didn’t, the decision was made to shut down for the evening.

The power was out all day at the Salvation Army’s Waterston Centre, but did return to the shelter at 4 p.m.

Maj. Wayne Mcdonough said the shelter could potentially experience more demand with Souls Harbour shutting down for the night.

The Waterston centre has 52 beds, but Mcdonough said it has the ability to accommodate for overflow with some mats. Other than that, it’s business as usual.

“Fortunately we’re OK,” said Mcdonough.

Souls Harbour is referring people to Mobile Crisis Regina, which is also facing challenges because of the outage. Power was down at the organization’s office, as were phone lines. Mobile Crisis does have access to hotels if people need them, but the process will be much slower.

Jan Thorson, assistant director for Mobile Crisis, said the office normally has 12 phone lines open. Currently, calls coming in are going to an answering service that texts those messages to its staff.

“Expect delays. As long as the power’s out, our response time is going to be much longer than we would like it to be. There’s just no way around that,” said Thorson.

Thorson advised people to call Mobile Crisis as opposed to visiting the office, which was closed during the outage.

Moose Jaw’s Riverside Mission shelter was also dealing with an outage, but fortunately had its power return Rachel Mullens, the interim manager at Riverside, said the shelter was trying to find a generator. When one was found, Mullens said the company graciously offered to donate the generator to the shelter. Fortunately, the generator was not needed.

Other Regina residents faced their own, less critical frustrations as they grappled with the power outage. Ken Symon, who works at SARCAN, was waiting for a bus downtown on his way home from an especially boring shift. He said he was kept on the job for about seven hours with little to do.

“Everybody kept saying ‘Oh, the power’s coming back on, the power’s coming back on,’ ” he said. “And finally, at about three o’clock, head office says ‘Go home, it’s not worth it.’”

He said many of his co-workers seemed frustrated and irritated. They weren’t able to do any recycling work without power, and were kept busy with cleaning jobs.

“They should have sent us home as soon as the power went out,” he said.

Workers at downtown businesses seemed to have headed home far earlier than Symon.

A bus driver said the scene on 11th Avenue resembled a “ghost town” — at least compared with the usual 4 p.m. rush.

She said she wasn’t permitted to provide her name, but noted that the higher-ups at transit have told her to prioritize safety over scheduling during the outage.

She was irritated to see that many other drivers don’t seem to be following that advice.

“Some people are courteous and some are in a hurry,” she said, noting that many don’t seem to properly understand how to deal with four-way stops at non-functional traffic lights.

“They don’t take into consideration that pedestrians have the right of way all the time,” she said.

“I’m surprised somebody hasn’t been hit.”