Good News: Survived Our First Hurricane
One of the things that I never thought I would go through was an actual hurricane. In Ontario, we had remnants of hurricanes come through as bad rainstorms but that was it. We have also had bad windstorms, but they usually just knocked over some smaller trees and rotten branches.
We knew when we moved to Nova Scotia that it was technically possible to get hit by a hurricane but we never thought we would get one, and a bad one, our first year.
This past weekend, we had Hurricane Fiona roll through Atlantic Canada. We were not sure what to think leading up to it. Some seem to think it wouldn’t be bad and others were quite concerned. We did our best to prepare.
Friday night, it was very rainy and windy. Basically a miserable night. It was loud but we didn’t know what morning would bring.
Saturday morning, Amana woke me up to tell me the willow tree had come down. This was a big old willow on our property that I never imagined could get knocked down. In addition to dozens of other branches being on the ground, half of a big maple was on our garage.
The biggest challenge was that we were without power. This was for two reasons. One was that all of the power was out in our village. The other was that the lines at our house had been ripped from the mast. Even now, with power being restored to the village, there is currently no power at the house.
It was very eerie to walk around Brookfield. Trees were knocked down everywhere, in some cases blocking parts of the road. A blue spruce in front of our church was broken halfway up but thankfully didn’t damage the building.
It has been amazing to watch the community working together. Lots of people with chainsaws have been out clearing trees. People have been lending generators and providing charging stations for phones.
This has been a reminder of how much we take for granted. In addition to being without power, there were no open gas stations near where we live. Not only has wifi been out but many smart phones have had trouble using data, making it difficult to keep in touch through the internet.
The Good News is that we are all doing well. We are also seeing the best of people. We have personally received help from people in our church and the wider community. We have tried to be present for others as well.
I’m not eager to go through another hurricane, but I’m thankful we have survived this one. My thanks go to all the workers and volunteers who have done so much to get Atlantic Canada through this time.
