CHANNEL-PORT AUX BASQUES, N.L. — A heavy fog Wednesday morning, Sept. 28, in Port Aux Basques shielded much of the shattered shoreline from sight, but the fog lifted enough in the afternoon for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to get a good view of the devastation caused by hurricane Fiona.
On Water Street East, the rubble that was Amy Osmond’s house barely resembles a liveable structure.
She became emotional describing the weekend’s ordeal to Trudeau, how the surging water “drove her family out.”
Later, she surveyed remains of her home strewn around by wind and an angry sea. Her living room couch was hundreds of feet away amid a pile of rubble that once was the bottom floor of a large two-storey building that was swept from its foundation to the other side of the road. The top floor of that building remains almost intact, as if ripped off cleanly, riding a wave of debris to the spot where the sea released it.
Trudeau was accompanied by Premier Andrew Furey and others, along with local and national media.
All along the shoreline, what is left of homes teeters on the edge of cliffs that once were grassy backyards.
Wood and other debris float endlessly in the water, washing up in coves and crevices.
And underfoot, the hazards are many.
Nails of various sizes protrude from scattered and piled pieces of wood, and broken walls of houses and sheds. There is tattered furniture, a splintered bedpost, broken glass, a kitchen chair, children’s toys and some collector hockey cards. A card depicting former Detroit Red Wing tough guy Bob Probert lies alone amid rocks and cement.
Unsteady concrete slabs that were once the foundation of homes lie in odd formations as if tossed like a deck of cards.
Off Knox Avenue, Robin Ingram, Colin Leaman and Lionel Forsey try to figure out where Ingram’s shed had stood.
It’s just part of the talk the men share standing around while assessments of properties are carried out, and contractors and volunteers start to move in to clean up.
On the street, members of the military walk by. The Canadian Rangers stand guard over areas deemed too hazardous for the public. The red vests of Canadian Red Cross volunteers are seen more and more about town.
Ingram says he couldn't care less, really, about where his shed was. His house is “over there,” he says, pointing to a clump of wood and debris washing up in a cove across the inlet.
His daughter, who lived next door with her three young children, lost her house, too. What is left of it lies in a pile, some of it against the neighbour’s home.
“If we didn’t get the call when we did … I was in bed asleep and my wife came down and said the wave is coming, we are going to lose everything, so we rushed next door to my daughter’s house to get her and the three kids ready to leave,” Ingram said. “The next morning when I came down here, this (rubble) is what I saw.
“You come here and see all the things you worked hard for all your life gone in a flash. Some people were able to get some things out of their house, but we didn’t get a thing out. I left with only an old pair of sneakers, a pair of gym pants, and a hoodie. I even left my teeth behind. And I don’t have any teeth yet.”
The men talk about a big storm in the mid-1970s in which a number of boats and stages were lost. It was bad, but nothing compared to Fiona.
Leaman said he often sat in his shed and looked out at the ocean, knowing with the changing climate a storm like hurricane Fiona could happen.
“I always thought about it,” he said. “I’ve seen big waves come in here before and I knew it could happen.”
Forsey, a retired teacher, says his family owned much of the land in the Knox Avenue area in years past, and gradually sold it off to other families.
On Wednesday, he described the various grassy backyards and sheds that were developed on the land, that the ocean stripped away.
Some of the homes, he noted, had been re-enforced to withstand storms, but hurricane Fiona brushed the fortifications aside in a matter of minutes.
“Total destruction,” he said.
Ingram added that even if people who lost their homes were allowed to rebuild in the same places on the shoreline, Fiona has done it for him.
“I won’t rebuild here,” he said, looking over the barren rocks leading down to water where his property was. “That was it for me.”