A warm gesture amid the driving bitter winds
Eva offered to give people a lift to avoid waiting in the cold
The extreme cold weather — oh, it again — is twisting its icicle knife deeper into the ribs of our already brutalized and salt-stained winter patience, for at least another two days.
Highs are expected to drop into the -16 C neighbourhood. With highs like that who needs lows? No one, but we’re getting them anyway. In the petrifying mid-minus 20s range, with the wind chill, more like -35 to -40, and feeling like -55 with my VISA statement.
As W.C. Fields once said — Google him, kids — “Ain’t a fit night out for man or beast.”
But it’s warm in Eva Salinas’s car. From the teeth of this deep freeze, replete with emergency weather warnings, Eva is hoping to pull people into the comfort of a ride, to wherever — a night shift, a pharmacy to get meds, children’s pickup — whatever the case may be. She sent out two tweets earlier today. “Friends: It’s cold, as you know, I just got in from work, grateful to have a warm car to get me there, which wasn’t always the case. It reminded me of winters past when I would wait a long time outside, infant in tow, for a bus. Not fun.”
So, in sum, she’s been there. The second tweet got to the heart of the matter.
“So for anyone that’s been beaten down by the bitter wind, I’d like to offer a free ride, anywhere in Hamilton area, Thurs., 4 to 10 p.m. ... I have a car seat & can fit a folded wheelchair.”
Nice. When I talked to her, late afternoon Thursday, no one had taken her up on the offer.
“This is my sixth winter in Hamilton,” she tells me, “and for the first three I used public transportation. I just felt really lucky this week and was thinking about others.
“I had people call (about the tweets) but they didn’t need a ride.” They were simply supportive of what she is doing.
“Trudeau ( Justin) was reminding people that it’s the 20th anniversary of the ice storm (in Montreal) and how people helped each other out.”
Eva, who spent part of her youth in Chile, says she has lived in many places as an adult, none so long as she has in Hamilton. She loves the city and doesn’t think she would’ve done the same thing if she were still living in Toronto.
“Hamilton is a big city but it has this small community vibe,” says Eva, who works for opencanada.org, a foreign policy online magazine.
If people do want to help out, these are good times to do it because it is getting colder and colder, at least until Sunday, says Ria Alsen, severe weather meteorologist with Environment Canada.
“Cover up as much skin as possible,” says Ria. “Basically it’s this really strong wind from cold Arctic air and a low pressure system is drawing in the cold air over us.”