People in the Fredericton area are picking up the pieces after a devastating storm ripped through New Brunswick’s capital city.
Phillip Weah experienced a flood, a fire and a funeral, all in 24 hours. He’s one of a half-dozen tenants who was displaced after trees knocked down power lines and started a fire in a four-unit apartment on George Street in Fredericton.
Weah’s wife, who uses a wheelchair, was home alone. When the fire started, he was out making funeral arrangements for his 20-year-old daughter.
Luckily, neighbors pulled Phillip’s wife out, and despite the fire, he laid their daughter to rest Saturday morning.
“As I’m standing here now, I don’t even know what’s happening to me,” said Phillip Weah, who is now displaced.
Up the road, Andrew Hashey watched in horror as his newly-restored VW bus was plummeted with hail.
“You kind of wonder, what’s going on? If this is the new reality beyond the pandemic, global warming and just madness,” said Hashey.
In the Hanwell and Pine Grove mini-home community, there was significant damage to several mobile homes. An uprooted tree on Davis Orser’s lot and a lengthy power outage has forced him from his home.
“I’m not going to be here, I’m going where there is power,” Orser said.
There were no reports of injuries from the apartment fire or damaged mobile homes. Some residents in Fredericton say the novel coronavirus pandemic and the anti-Black racism protests in solidarity with George Floyd, a Black man who died while in police custody in Minnesota, have made them numb to this extreme weather event.
“I’m not too hurt by this because of everything that’s going on, it’s kind of like … there’s more lives at stake.”
Canadian Red Cross volunteers arranged emergency lodging and meals for displaced residents.
In a statement sent to Global News, NB Power said: “This short storm was very powerful and did a lot of damage, it affected about 13,000 customers. There is a lot of clean up to do before being able to make the repairs and restore power as most outages are due to trees or branches making contact with power lines following wind gusts of up to 90 km/h.”
Meanwhile, Phillip Weah is optimistic his apartment will be restored so he won’t have to move.
“I lost my daughter, my house got burn and I don’t know what to do.”