SACKVILLE, N.B. — Crystal Stokes realized she was in trouble at around suppertime on Saturday when the power went out.
With no generator and rain relentlessly coming down, the Wood Point resident knew she would soon be dealing with a flooded basement. And there wasn’t much she could do about it.
“I got over a foot of water in my basement within a couple hours of losing power,” said Stokes. “And I couldn’t get a generator until the next afternoon.”
Although she and a friend were finally able to move her furniture up to drier ground several hours later, much of the damage had already been done. She hopes to be able to dry out the sofa and chairs enough to keep but “I lost mostly everything that was down there.”
“Everything was floating,” she said.
On Sunday, still without power, Stokes went to borrow a generator to get the sump pump up and running again. And ever since, she has been spending countless hours with her daughter Miah clearing out the basement and bagging up what couldn’t be salvaged.
Stokes is just one of many area residents affected by Hurricane Dorian over the weekend, a storm that brought winds in excess of 100 km/h to the region along with an estimated 100 mm of rain.
Whether it was downed trees, flooded basements, damaged buildings, or prolonged power outages, the impact of the storm was felt throughout the area – from Cape Tormentine to Dorchester Cape, and all areas in between.
Jennifer Whittemore felt Dorian’s force at around 11 p.m. Saturday night, during the height of the storm.
A massive tree in her back yard in Middle Sackville was uprooted from the winds and came tumbling down toward her house.
“It was very loud and it shook our whole house when it hit,” she said.
The impact from the downed tree shattered the patio furniture on the deck and also put holes in the siding and the gutter. Fortunately, she said, no structural damage was done to the roof or to the deck.
Another tree also fell later on in their yard, just missing their shed.
“So we are honestly feeling pretty lucky. It could have been much worse,” she said.
At Murray Corner Provincial Park, a kitchen shelter was destroyed by the winds while a number of camping trailers and their contents were also damaged. The tenting area at the park was also impacted by many fallen trees and debris.
Sackville’s public works crews spent much of the weekend removing fallen trees from roadways, cleaning up broken branches, repairing washouts and keeping an eye on the lift stations in town – while some are able to continue run off generators, others are required to be pumped out on a regular basis with the vacuum truck.
Town engineer Dwayne Acton said during the height of the storm on Saturday night, the majority of calls his crew dealt with were downed trees. Fortunately, he said they weren’t called to any flooding issues in town – and he attributes that to a combination of the new flood mitigation infrastructure put in place recently at Lorne Street and the Route 935 intersection along with the right tide times.
Sackville’s fire department was also kept busy throughout the storm, dealing with calls related to downed trees and power lines.
In a post on Facebook post, the fire department thanked residents for remaining at home during the worst of the storm.
“We are pleased that our busy night was free from any required rescue and zero injuries.”
Throughout New Brunswick, the number of power outages climbed to more than 80,000 clients on Saturday night. All available resources from NB Power, over 142 crews, were mobilized across the province to assess damage and restore power as quickly and safely as possible.
