Friday, March 29, 2024

Hurricane damages minor in MODG, Mulgrave

  • September 28 2022
  • By Lois Ann Dort, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter    

GUYSBOROUGH -- As Hurricane Fiona drew nearer to Nova Scotia last Friday (Sept. 23), Environment Canada predicted the storm would make landfall between Guysborough and Canso. In the early hours of Saturday (Sept. 24), the category-2 hurricane (maximum sustained wind speeds of 165 km/h or 90 knots) made landfall in Whitehead, 28 km southwest of Canso.

Earlier last week, the Municipality of the District of Guysborough (MODG) began preparations for what was expected to be one of the most severe weather events ever experienced by the municipality. Fortunately, despite being in the direct path of the storm, communities in the MODG and the neighbouring Town of Mulgrave, sustained little damage throughout the storm.

Driveways washed out in Mulgrave

Mulgrave Mayor Ron Chisholm told The Journal on Monday morning (Sept. 26), “The folks of Mulgrave are absolutely fine. We sustained very minimal damage; a few driveways washed out but for the most part that’s the extent of it. Maybe one tree down. It was heavy winds, rain and the storm surge was wicked high.”

Chisholm said, given the predicted ferocity of the storm, “I feared when I got up on Saturday morning that I was going to see a lot of trees down. We have some big poplars, which don’t have a good root system; they were all still standing. It’s phenomenal how little damage we sustained especially as the eye was coming through on us.”

Later in the day, Chisholm and local public works employees travelled most streets in the town to assess damage and found very little to report.

“I was baffled. I think the biggest part was a sailboat down in Pirate Harbour that got stuck on shore. That was the worst of the damage….I feel for the poor people whose houses were smashed, trees on top of houses, you’re hearing that in Antigonish,” said Chisholm, adding that he’d sent a message to the Mayor of Cape Breton Regional Municipality, an area that was so hard hit by Hurricane Fiona that it declared a state of emergency, that Mulgrave would extend any and all help possible to help them through the disaster.

Power was restored in Mulgrave on Saturday afternoon at approximately 2 p.m. To the south of Mulgrave, the shiretown of Guysborough had a similar story to tell, with power restored at approximately 7 p.m Saturday; this while many surrounding communities have an estimated return of service of Wednesday (Sept. 28) afternoon or late evening.

Warden commends NSP

MODG Warden Vernon Pitts spoke to The Journal about the storm on Monday afternoon. “The worst thing is the cell service was terrible and come to find out that they’re [telecom companies] still using batteries as back up; that’s dinosaur technology,” he said. “The municipality, our comfort centres, our main building, the CLC [Chedabucto Lifestyle Centre], the hospitals; they’re all fired up by generators, automatic start and shut off. This is ridiculous...There’ll certainly be a letter coming from council in regards to that…That was supposed to be addressed following the last major storm. To my way of thinking it hasn’t been addressed, period.”

On a positive note, Pitts said, “We’ve got to commend NSP [Nova Scotia Power], [Provincial] public works as well as the municipality; these people were engaged 24/7. In regard to those individuals, they suffered damage the same way we did, but they can’t repair their damage presently, they’re too busy working on us. And I think they should be commended for that.”

While some areas of the MODG had power restored Saturday, many areas between Guysborough and Canso, as well as along the southeastern shore, where Fiona made landfall, continue to be without power. Pitts said, “As of my last briefing this morning, I was at the office around 11:30, at that time my understanding was, our infrastructure is ready to fire up, we’re just waiting, apparently there’s a transformer out between Trenton and here somewhere.”

Along with power, Pitts said another major concern was the Internet outage which forced many businesses to operate on a cash-only basis as debit machines were down. He added, “I think something in the future we should flag, that when an event like this is on the horizon, that we encourage people to have cash on hand.”

Pitts also told The Journal that he had spoken to residents in the Whitehead area where the hurricane made landfall Saturday morning. He said, “They got away pretty unscathed with a bit of damage to roads but that’s to be expected. I think a lot of it had to do with the wind direction.”

Pitts also noted that work done by NSP to clear trees from power lines this past summer made a big difference to the number of lines that were down, and he would encourage that work to continue.

In the days ahead, as MODG residents wait for power to come back online, Pitts said comfort stations would be opened in areas that continue to suffer from power outages such as Country Harbour, Canso and New Harbour. And he advised residents to, “pay attention to Twitter and radio and the municipal webpage because everything will be posted as we roll it out. But then it’s no good to check the webpage or Twitter if your internet’s down. Its Catch-22; you can’t win for losing.”

Pitts said, “I’d just like to explain to the people that we are doing everything within our power to get through this and we will get through it, it’s just going to take some time.”

As a final comment, Pitts said that the worst issue he encountered was the lack of communication which made it difficult for him, as warden, to take part in emergency briefings, connect with municipal staff and other key actors during the storm.

Pitts noted that Guysborough-Tracadie MLA Greg Morrow and Cape Breton-Canso MP Mike Kelloway were in constant communication with the MODG throughout the storm and after.

“I commend those two guys. They stepped up to the plate,” said Pitts.

Emergency management

MODG’s Emergency Management Office Coordinator Shawn Andrews sat down with The Journal during Monday’s lunch hour to discuss the storm and the measures taken to support residents in need.

On Friday night, MODG opened two safe buildings – the CLC in Guysborough and the Canso/Hazel Hill Volunteer Fire Department in Canso – where residents could take shelter, if they did not feel safe in their homes. Andrews said six people took advantage of the shelter in Guysborough and four residents visited the site in Canso.

As of Monday, Andrews said, “Crews are out trying to restore power. They are doing all the work that they can. It’s our understanding that it appears to be a transmission issue [break in link between main power source and the grid it serves rather than downed lines locally]. They’re getting as much work done locally on the lines…Nova Scotia Dept. of Public Works is out doing road repairs as well. That’s ongoing as well. There’s a lot of crews from Nova Scotia as well as outside of Nova Scotia that are assisting in the response.”

When asked if lines were down in the Canso area Andrews said, “To my understating, based on our staff that are on the ground, all of those issues have been repaired.” The lack of power is due to the unavailability of energy from the transmission source.

In anticipation of the storm, the MODG had set up a phone line for those in need during the storm. Andrews said a few minor calls were received and local volunteer fire departments also received few calls over the duration of the storm and the days directly after. No emergency evacuations were necessary in the municipality and there were few reports of highway flooding.

“The brooks were very dry, and they were able to handle the majority of the rainfall that occurred. Relatively speaking, there was just minor flooding and areas that we were suspecting might have some coastal flooding were thankfully not, that didn’t occur,” said Andrews.

Andrews thanked residents for their preparedness and patience, as well as first responders and Nova Scotia Power crews.

Meteorological explanation

Given that Fiona made landfall in MODG, and the municipality was expecting far more damage than what occurred, The Journal asked Environment and Climate Change Canada, Hurricane Centre meteorologist Ian Hubbard to what the municipality owed its good fortune.

“When the centre of post-tropical storm Fiona made landfall, certainly with any tropical system, they tend to have this eye, and in the eye the winds do tend to be lighter. So that’s one thing…It’s not really a large area usually and certainly when I looked at some of our observations near where it did make landfall, we certainly saw some very strong winds as it moved up and made landfall,” said Hubbard.

Looking at Hart Island weather station located off Canso, Hubbard said, “When Fiona was coming in and the wind was still from the northeast there, they were gusting to about 100 (km/hr). That’s a pretty strong wind but certainly not anything that wouldn’t have been felt there before through many other storms or nor’easters. At the same time or similar time frame, a little bit further away at Port Hawkesbury, the winds were only gusting about 78 [km/hr] there from the northeast as it was making landfall and pushing up through there.”

Explaining the extreme damage that occurred in more northern regions of the province, particularly the areas along the Northumberland Strait, Hubbard said, “Once the centre of the storm, where that eye would have been, moved further north and was further inland, those winds came around and what we’re seeing in many parts, not necessarily in eastern Cape Breton but most of the parts along the north shore and certainly Prince Edward Island, those winds were coming from the north and the northwest and those were really damaging winds with the really high gust that we saw behind it.”

Hubbard added, “For example at Hart Island, after the storm went past, the winds gusted up to 128 km/ hr there, but that direction was a little more southwest. As you got further south, away from the centre of that storm, the winds weren’t necessarily northwest but a little southwest – so depending on the terrain… some places can be a little more sheltered. If the winds were more west and southwest as they appear to have been there – Hart Island and Port Hawkesbury – you would have had some protection…these areas that got hit really hard along the strait (Northumberland) and Prince Edward Island, they were really exposed with the winds coming straight at them off the water with nothing to protect them. That would be one of my theories as to why you [MODG] didn’t see as much damage as those other areas. When you have wind off the land, you do get some protection, but wind directly off the water, there’s nothing there to stop it.”

Internet and fuel supply

As alluded to in comments from Warden Pitts, the failure of Internet service was a major problem for individuals who were trying to contact friends and family to let them know they were safe after the storm as well as local businesses.

In the case of Cooks Gas Bar and Robins in Guysborough, both fuel supply and Internet service has been an issue in the wake of the storm.

Owner Fraser Cook told The Journal on Monday morning that he expected to run out of fuel by Monday afternoon but was expecting a delivery later in the day which did arrive. He said, “Basically yesterday, my understanding is, we were the only fuel in service from Antigonish to the [Canso] Causeway. Bayside and Monastery were out due to fuel shortage. I believe they had back-up generators, just didn’t have fuel. My understanding is Antigonish is down due to power issues due to the storm, and I believe Half Island Cove and Canso, they were down yesterday. So, we were they only kid in town with fuel yesterday; we were non-stop. Fortunately, we’d taken the fuel up on Friday just as the storm was starting…we are starting to get down on fuel. We are getting calls from all over, looking for fuel, customers wanting to know if we have fuel.

In addition to operating at maximum capacity at the pumps, the store’s debit system was down due to the Internet service disruption that has plagued much of the province since the storm arrived.

Cook said, “We are still dealing with a debit issue, so we are cash only. It goes back to the debit issues. So, in light of everything, there’s not too much maybe you can do about it, but I understand some other stores, their debits are up…we currently do not have Internet. We’ll reach out and see if it is an isolated issue. I know at home our Internet is down as well.”

The Journal contacted Bell Aliant media spokesperson Katie Hatfield Monday morning regarding the Internet service outage, asking the cause and the estimated restoration time and received the following reply via email, “The majority of our network in Nova Scotia is operational, including network sites that are on either battery back-up systems or generators due to power outages. Our teams across the province are working extremely hard to both restore power to the small number of sites still down and keep customers connected. Customers who lost power are reminded that when power is restored they may need to turn their modems and receivers off and on again to reboot service.”

Clean up

Although the MODG weathered the storm well, some cleanup was and will be required when all residents have power restored. In Canso volunteers were out on Sunday (Sept. 25) clearing the Chapel Gully Trail of debris and fallen trees.

Susan O’Handley, secretary of the Eastern Tip Trails Association, the organization that builds and maintains the Chapel Gully Trail, told The Journal in an online message, “It took two volunteers a few hours to clear the smaller trees and debris from the small and middle trails on the Chapel Gully Trail. As of this morning (Monday, Sept. 26) there is still one large tree down on the middle trail. A board member reports a large one is down on the longer trail, but as of this morning we still haven't got down to that part of the trail.

“We will be addressing those either today or tomorrow and clearing the smaller debris there as well. Relying on volunteers means you sometimes have to wait. People have their own yards to clear or repairs to their homes which are the priority. The two smaller trails are good, as we cleared the branches off the downed tree, so you can get through. We suggest hikers use caution as there are a lot of leaves on the boardwalks, which, if wet, will be slippery. All in all, it could have been a lot worse. It doesn't appear any of the built infrastructure was damaged. We are in the middle of a $30,000 upgrade, so we are thankful for that,” wrote O’Handley.