‘WE JUST CAME TO HELP OUT’
Communities rise to the occasion
Lilly Thomas spent her day off school Monday scooping tuna fish onto pita bread, making sandwiches for folks who were finding Ottawa’s power outages more than just an inconvenience.
The sandwiches being assembled at the Parkdale Food Centre on Rosemount Avenue were packed into lunches for distribution to vulnerable people across the city.
“School was cancelled, so we figured, ‘Why not come down here and help?’” said Thomas, 15. She was working alongside buddy Megan McCowan, “almost 15,” who said she felt lucky that her family only lost power for a day. “All the food in our fridge went bad, but, compared to a lot of people, we’re lucky.”
Food Centre manager Karen Secord said many people on low incomes couldn’t afford to replace food spoiling in the fridge after three days without electricity.
She was busy finding jobs for the extra volunteers who showed up to help and directing people who came in looking for food to a large fridge stuffed with vegetables.
It was one small example of how folks across the city stepped up in the aftermath of Friday’s tornadoes and crippling power outages since then.
From the man who rescued a neighbour trapped in her basement after the Dunrobin tornado to school kids helping at the food bank, hundreds if not thousands of people lent helping hands.
Here are a few of their stories:
ARBORIST ARRIVED FROM BROCKVILLE TO HELP OUT
When Josh Place, an arborist who runs a tree service in Brockville, heard about the Dunrobin tornado, he hopped in his truck and drove up to offer his services.
Place and several crew members from St. Lawrence Tree Service spent Sunday and Monday removing trees blocking driveways and roads and using a chipper to destroy branches.
Place said he cleaned up fallen trees at one property on Porcupine Trail that had the garage blown away and shingles torn off the roof of the house. Two children, ages 9 and 12, were home alone when the tornado hit, he said. “They phoned their dad, who coached them to hide under the stairs until it blew over.”
On Monday, Place’s crew spent the better part of a day removing branches and debris from the yard of a church. “We just came to help out,” he said.
APARTMENT SUPERINTENDENT A HERO, TENANT SAYS
As far as Evan Thompson is concerned, the superintendent of his apartment building on Richmond Road is a hero. Joe Muchmore stayed up virtually day and night the whole weekend to help the building ’s many seniors, guarding the apartment door when the locks failed and tinkering with the generator to make it run longer while waiting for fuel.
Muchmore set himself up in the lobby, dispensing information, flashlights, batteries, candles and reassurance, Thompson said. The superintendent also found an old barbecue and set it up near the pool so residents could cook. By Saturday night, the building was down to one elevator as Muchmore made a desperate bid to preserve the dwindling supply of diesel in the generator. He also escorted people to their apartments, Thompson said.
And, he didn’t mention it, but Thompson was with Muchmore, helping out the entire weekend, too.
The lights came back on Sunday night.
PULLING A NEIGHBOUR OUT OF HER BASEMENT
Dunrobin resident Dave Halikas was returning a lawn mower to his neighbour’s shed on Friday when the tornado destroyed that structure and the house next to it. Halikas, who was scraped up, ran over to the house and heard his neighbour screaming.
“She was trapped in the basement and couldn’t get out.” He removed some debris from the basement door and helped pull her out.
“She was shaken up, but not injured at all.”