Tornado’s toll hitting home in Gatineau
Residents rescue what possessions they can, look for long-term accommodations
After four days in the same clothes, barred from entering his condemned home, he’d had enough.
“It’s ridiculous,” Idi Ngala said. “I want to grab my stuff now. If anybody stops me, that’s on them.”
He went in the back door and up to the top floor of his apartment in the Mont-Bleu neighbourhood of Gatineau on Monday to check on his possessions for the first time since the tornado struck Friday.
It was all safe. The building even looks solid except for some brick veneer ripped off one wall, Ngala said. So why has it been condemned? he asked.
“I got 30, 40 suitcases. My (stuff ) is intact. My walls didn’t fall; nothing moved in my place,” he said. “And now you’re going to tell me I can’t go in, when I see (other) people walking in?”
All up and down Georges Bilodeau Street on Monday, people came, they ducked under the danger tape (red from the structural engineers, orange from Gatineau police) and they packed their belongings.
It was moving day in Mont-Bleu. The neighbourhood does not take up a lot of space on the map, but many people have been affected. On Ngala’s block there are 14 low-rise apartment buildings, mostly eight-unit buildings. Most are condemned and will be demolished.
Gatineau Mayor Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin said some displaced people are now looking for housing that the city can’t always provide. “There are 1,379 people signed up with the Red Cross, which is 437 families,” he told the Citizen. “The Red Cross and the city are trying to find places for them to stay. That is our absolute priority . ... There are very few hotel rooms available in the region, so there are a number of families in the shelter.”
The hunt is on for longer-term solutions. In the meantime, some are on camp cots in a gymnasium, which is hard but at least they’re getting hot meals, he said, courtesy of the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Moisson Outaouais and others.
With about three-quarters of the buildings, people have been able to return home, he said, but there are 55 “heavily damaged” buildings, including apartments in Mont-Bleu.
A block away from Georges Bilodeau Street, on Daniel Johnson Street, the damage looked even worse. Many had tape stretched across doorways and driveways, a sign that an engineer has determined it is unsafe for residents to go back inside.
Much of the tape was fluttering in the wind Monday. People were tearing it off doors, or lifting it and stooping underneath to go inside.
Up and down the street there were steady arrivals and departures as cars collected the dispossessed. Most took few possessions. Furniture stayed behind.
Angel Jose had to leave the basement apartment he shared with his wife and their two children, ages two and seven. Luckily, a friend who lives nearby can take them in for now.
“It was very horrible,” he said of the moment the tornado struck.
But he had praise for disaster officials. “They are doing a great job,” he said.
His family has received some money for clothes to replace what they lost. “They are with us, they are helping us, they are giving us social and psychological support. The government has done a great job to rescue us.”
The number of people who suddenly became homeless at about 5 p.m. Friday is in the hundreds. Many began their journey into homelessness by going to the shelter staffed by the Red Cross at the Cégep de l’Outaouais on Citédes-Jeunes Boulevard. But a lot of these have moved on to stay with friends and family.
One such extended family belongs to Robert and Amanda Hansen, a brother and sister. Robert and his family of five had their apartment destroyed, and after starting with the Red Cross (where they were grateful for hot food) they moved on to Amanda’s home, a 20-minute drive away.
“Now there’s 11 of us sleeping in a three-bedroom semi-detached,” Robert said. “We’ve just been given permission today to go back in and clean up the garbage.”
He had rescued the family ’s hamster and cockatiel on Saturday. Both are fine.
“I’m just happy it wasn’t worse,” he said.
Hansen said he’s pleased with the information sessions and the amount of information coming from Gatineau City Hall.
Johanne Saucier was trying to find a moving company Monday as her boyfriend helped her pack her belongings.
“We have to go one day at a time,” she said. “Here it’s a co-op, so they are trying to find us places.” Unofficially, she had been told there was a set of 12 apartments available somewhere but she does not know if it was true.
She is insured. “Thank God. We don’t have a choice with the co-op; we need to have insurance.”
She was sitting in her immaculate kitchen as she spoke. Nothing was broken or even out of place in the apartment, but when she steps into the stairwell she looks up at blue sky where the roof should be.
And there are bricks scattered all over the parking area behind the building. Saucier marvelled that no one was hurt by them.
The building will be demolished. Anyone driving down the streets now can see the destruction, but it was worse on Saturday. The view Monday was actually the cleanedup version; piles of heavy debris have been trucked away.
A block away on Daniel Johnson Street, and on up the hill to the west, it looked like a massive Hydro- Quebec construction project from the 1970s. Hydro trucks were all over the streets, joined by some private contractors. There were trucks with new wooden utility poles, trucks with rolls of heavy cable, backhoes and more.
They will be back Tuesday and for a long time to come.
The Quebec government committed $1 million on Saturday; Gatineau will ask for more.
Pedneaud-Jobin said the first $1 million came as soon as Gatineau asked. The city’s situation is very different from the 2017 flooding in some ways, he said. The tornado happened “in a few seconds,” which means rebuilding can start immediately.
“But the housing problem is similar. People have lost their homes for weeks or months,” he said.
Pedneaud-Jobin said contractors are working as fast as they can to protect homes before the next rain, and is asking people to stay away from their homes to let the crew get as much done as possible.