A roof over their heads
Glace Bay couple who lost everything in Sunday fire find new home
A Glace Bay couple who lost everything in a fire on Sunday now have a place to call home.
Pat Hurley said thanks to the public rallying around her family, they moved into a new apartment at 798 Main St. on Wednesday.
“I’m so happy we have a roof over our head,” she said
“We didn’t know what we were going to do, we had nowhere to go.”
Hurley said her and partner Glenn MacDonald received a call from Angus MacNeil who owns the building.
“He’s a friend of Glenn’s, heard about the fire and saw the story in the Cape Breton Post. He said ‘I have a spot for you if you’re interested.’”
Hurley said it’s a “wonderful apartment” near St. Anne’s Elementary School where her grandson, Cole — who she has custody of —attends and it’s within walking distance to the Glace Bay Food Bank where she works as one of its co-ordinators.
While going through bags of donations Wednesday, Hurley said they are amazed how the public stepped up to help them and the “new” condition of many of the donated items.
“People are so good,” she said. “I never thought I’d be in this kind of predicament but I know how a community pulls together.
“We appreciate everything everyone has been doing for us.”
She said a woman they don’t even know even showed up at the Hearthstone Inn in Sydney, where they were staying after the fire, and offered them a temporary place to stay.
“She said she was going away for a week and that if we didn’t find a place, (she) offered us her house for the week to give us more time to find one.”
At about 4:56 p.m. on Sunday, a fire broke out in the house at 4 Hector St., Glace Bay, that Hurley had rented for 16 years. Hurley, who lived there with her partner Glenn MacDonald and grandson Cole, didn’t have tenant’s insurance and they lost the majority of their belongings to fire, smoke and water damage.
The Glace Bay Volunteer Fire Department said the fire was accidental, attributing it to a generator on the back step.
Hurley said they were grateful for the almost-new, two-piece chesterfield set someone donated, as well as a bed for Cole, a table and chair set, clothes and other items. She said someone dropped off a box of shoes, sneakers and boots in Glenn’s size at the Hearthstone Inn.
She said they are still searching for a queen-sized bed, dishes, silverware and the other smaller things needed in a household.
But Hurley said they know
the material things are secondary and they realize how lucky they were to get out of the house safely.
“We are thankful, as it could have been worse.”
She said as well they are grateful to the Canadian Red Cross who were on the scene immediately after the fire to help them.
“Red Cross has been phenomenal and we thank them,” she said.
“They were right there for us, gave us gift cards for clothes and
a place to stay for a few nights. They also dropped in again to see how we were doing.”
Mark Stillwell of Halifax was in the area with his partner, Chris Cochrane, who is Hurley’s daughter. They spent Wednesday
picking up donations with a U-Haul.
Stillwell said they didn’t hesitate to head straight for Cape Breton after hearing about the fire.
“I called work and they gave me a week of my vacation,” he said. “We weren’t going to let them go through this by themselves.
“That wasn’t going to happen.”
Ruth Martell, a volunteer at the Glace Bay Food Bank, said many phone calls about donations came into the food bank for Hurley and her family, but even people with little of their own to offer wanted to help.
Martell said some of the clients of the food bank came in to tell her they were going to try and scrape up something to give to Hurley and her family.
“These are people who are in picking up food orders who have nothing themselves,” she said. “That tell you the connection they have to the food bank — to them the food bank is part of their family.
A go fund me account has been set up to help the family at https://www.gofundme.com/ydwu7a-help-needed-afterhouse-fire