Generations’ worth of memories were laid out on Mary Winning’s curb in St. Catharines, Ont., on Sunday in a jumbled mess of sewage-soiled mementoes, furniture, boxes and bags.
The 93-year-old’s home was flooded twice in five days during back-to-back storms that dumped months’ worth of rain on the city in just a few hours on the night of July 27 and again on Aug. 2, overwhelming sewers and spilling sewage-tainted water into thousands of homes.
“I’m glad she isn’t able to go downstairs because it would break her heart to see,” said her daughter Gail Winning, there along with her sister Carol Macdonald.
Their mother, who lost her husband last year, has lived in the bungalow for 66 years and was sporting a shiner on one eye after falling during the chaos of the floods.
“In all the years that my mom has been here there’s never been an insurance claim, there’s never been a flood, and now all of a sudden it’s twice in a week,” said Macdonald. “Seeing the couches and everything here on the curb is emotional for her.”
The city remains under a state of emergency, as does the neighbouring town of Lincoln, which also suffered extensive flooding.
But much-needed help has arrived.
Dozens of volunteers with Team Rubicon Canada descended on the city from across southern Ontario on the weekend, mobilizing to help the most vulnerable flooding victims.
Working with the city and provincial emergency officials, the teams will focus on the hundreds of people registered on a vulnerable persons registry the city has set up to identify those unable to deal with the flooding on their own, such as the frail and elderly.
Teams of volunteers will spend the next week or longer working back-breaking days removing everything from soiled furniture and carpets to ripping out ruined drywall, said Mischa Kaplan, CEO of Team Rubicon Canada.
“It’s what we call mucking out people’s basements. . . [so] we can leave the house in a state where it can be repaired, refloored, re-drywalled,” he told CBC News.
“It’s up to nine, 10 hours of very demanding, difficult labour,” said Kaplan, adding that it would be made even more difficult because they sometimes have to wear gas masks and protective coveralls if there’s a risk of asbestos or other hazards.
The volunteers won’t be staying in any fancy hotels: they’ll sleep on cots in the gym of St. Catharines Collegiate secondary school.
St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe said at a news conference last Tuesday that declaring a state of emergency was a way to highlight that his city needed help.
“We have expended all of our resources,” he said. “Recovery will require beyond what our municipality can provide on its own.”
At Mary Winning’s home on Sunday, four Rubicon members — known as greyshirts for the grey T-shirts they wear — lifted soiled furniture and belongings out a small side window from the ruined basement, piling it in a small mountain that spilled onto the neighbour’s curb.
The crew were soaked with sweat by the time they were wrapping up work a little more than two hours after they started.
Jack Profijt lives a few streets away and was volunteering for the first time in his own city after deploying multiple times with Rubicon over the past nine years.
Having spent 27 years with the Canadian Armed Forces reserves, Profijt described volunteering to help others as cathartic.
“It actually allows me to help my own community,” he said.
According to Kaplan, about a third of the Rubicon volunteers are veterans, a third are first responders such as police and firefighters, and a third are regular folk — some of whom are using annual leave to help people in Niagara.
For Profijt, knowing there was a traumatized, 93-year-old woman watching him work made the toil worthwhile, he said.
“Chances are that this lady has probably lived and worked in this community for 93 years,” he said. “We owe the service to this person. That’s why we’re here: to help vulnerable people who need the help.”
Mathew Xagoraris, an information officer with charity Team Rubicon Canada, reflected on how much Winning had lost as he surveyed the pile hauled from her baserment. Toys, an old Monopoly game, camping gear from family vacations, Christmas decorations and children’s paperbacks were among the discarded items.
“All the memories that this 93-year-old woman had were in the house, and this is all that is left of it,” he said. “It’s a lifetime of memories.”
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Gail Winning recently moved in with her mom to help her, meaning she also lost her belongings in the flooding.
She described going without hot water for nearly two weeks, as the water heater was among the destroyed appliances.
“Everything was going mouldy,” she said.
But hearing the Rubicon volunteers knock on the door brought a sense of hope, she said.
“We were overwhelmed. We didn’t know how to take care of all of this. They got here so fast after contacting us and they’ve made short work of it. It’s incredible.”
People wanting to help Team Rubicon Canada’s emergency response efforts can help by donating through its website, Kaplan said.
