A cottage, swept off its foundation, stands in PEI's North Rustico Harbour on Oct. 11, nearly three weeks after post-tropical storm Fiona made landfall.Photography by Darren Calabrese/The Globe and Mail
A little more than three weeks ago, David Saunders and Maridel Ancheta were welcoming loved ones on the eve of their wedding and celebrating their first season as owners of Rustico Resort Golf and Cottages. Then post-tropical storm Fiona barrelled across Prince Edward Island on Sept. 24, wreaking havoc on their property and their planned nuptials.
The storm destroyed eight of the resort’s cottages, tossing four of them into a marsh, leaving holes in the ground where they used to be. Seawater flooded their restaurant and kitchen; hurricane-strength winds left thousands of trees strewn across their golf course. Mr. Saunders had to wade through a dangerous storm surge in the middle of the night to pull terrified relatives out of flooding seaside cabins. “People started to panic when the water came up, over everything,” said Ms. Ancheta, the resort’s chef. “It was so scary. I just start crying when I think about it.”
A day after the storm, the sun returned and the couple hastily reorganized their wedding, exchanging vows outside on the lawn and cooking food for their guests with butane heaters as gas generators droned on. Ms. Ancheta’s bridal bouquet was recovered from a collapsed cottage by a neighbour who used a front-end loader to lift off the roof and retrieved the flowers from a fridge.
David Saunders and Maridel Ancheta are the owners of Rustico Resort Golf and Cottages.
A buoy, about 12 feet long, lies at the resort after the storm threw it from the ocean.
All across PEI, property owners, national park staff and businesses are trying to carry on and rebuild from the worst storm in the province’s history.
A pronounced labour shortage and continuing power outages have delayed that effort, and islanders are bracing for a long off-season of work before tourists return next summer. Several thousand homes were still without electricity three weeks after Fiona hit.
The storm devastated many of PEI’s landmark beaches and sand dunes, and destroyed much of the Parks Canada’s infrastructure that is used by tens of thousands of visitors each year. It gutted seafood restaurants that not long ago drew lineups for lobster rolls and steamed mussels. It crumpled wharfs, tossed aside deep-sea tour fishing boats, pummelled rental cottages with falling trees and washed away bridges and sections of road.
In Charlottetown, PEI’s leafy, historic capital, endless piles of brush, branches and felled trees remain stacked along the roadside. In the island’s pastoral interior, some barns that have stood for more than a century have been cut in half, their steel roofs torn clear off.
Parks Canada, which operates Cavendish and Brackley-Dalvay beaches as part of Prince Edward Island National Park, said it will be months before sections of its most popular areas are reopened to the public. Portions of the park’s shoreline eroded as much as 30 metres, and the powerful storm surge sheared off large stretches of its picturesque sand dunes. Campgrounds sustained heavy damage; boardwalks and stairs were destroyed.
“We’ve been pretty heavily hit,” said Robyn Caissie, visitor safety and fire operations co-ordinator for Parks Canada. “In some cases, there are so many trees still down it’s preventing crews from accessing certain areas of the park. This is going to take some time before we are able to take full stock of the damage.”
Park staff are already working to replant trees and beach grasses to help restore habitat for the endangered birds that draw thousands of tourists every year. Chainsaw crews are clearing fallen trees night and day, working around downed power lines, and geologists are helping efforts to stabilize erosion so sections of the scenic Gulf Shore Parkway that washed away can be rebuilt, Ms. Caissie said.
In Charlottetown, fallen trees surround Province House National Historic Site. The legislature building, an important venue of the Charlottetown conference of 1864 that ushered in Confederation, was closed for repairs seven years ago.
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Elsewhere, many nursing homes waited two weeks to be reconnected to the electrical grid, fuelling calls for a public inquiry into the government’s response to the storm. Some homeowners in rural areas were still waiting for the power to come back on as the recovery process approached its fourth week.
“The day after the storm, I went outside to look around and just took a deep breath. I knew this was going to take a long time to clean up,” said Kevin Ryan, an instructor with the nursing program at the University of Prince Edward Island.
His young family had been camping out in their old farmhouse by the sea in South Pinette, relying on a wood stove for heat and a propane barbecue to cook meals outside, when they lost power for 21 days. They gave up running their generator because it was consuming so much gas, and the food in their fridge and freezer spoiled. They relied on relatives’ homes for showers and WiFi so they could work.
So many trees fell across Mr. Ryan’s long, heavily wooded laneway that he had to use his tractor and chainsaw to cut a path through a neighbour’s soybean field to get the family cars out to the road.
Last Tuesday, the power line to his house was still sagging heavily under the weight of dozens of spruce trees – but he wasn’t allowed to clear them himself because the wires could still be live.
“It’s been a challenge, but the toughest part is not knowing when they might be able to get a crew here to help us get the power back on,” he said. (Crews finally began to clear the trees from his laneway on Oct. 14.)
Through Kevin Ryan's windshield, dozens of trees can be seen blocking the laneway of his property in South Pinette on Oct. 11, three days before crews began to clear them.
Mr. Ryan, an instructor at UPEI's nursing program, navigates his home with a flashlight.
Many islanders say it’s difficult to find contractors to help with repair work, and chainsaw operators are in high demand. The province is partnering with the island’s construction association to cover the expenses of any tradespeople who travel to PEI to help with the rebuilding effort.
“Hurricane Fiona has devastated our island communities and caused significant damage to many homes that need immediate attention before the weather turns colder. Trying to find a skilled, professional contractor can be overwhelming and a worry that islanders just don’t need during this time,” said Bloyce Thompson, PEI’s Minister for Economic Growth, Tourism and Culture.
At Rustico Resort Golf and Cottages, Mr. Saunders and Ms. Ancheta are still busy trying to clean up. Mr. Saunders is determined they’ll be rebuilt by next spring.
He surveys a line of stumps where tall trees used to stand and says he’s just happy no one was hurt. The golf course, he notes, can be repaired.
“It already looks a lot better than it did,” he said. “It’s full steam ahead now. We’ll be ready for guests by May.”
At the resort in Rustico, eroded coastline serves as a reminder of Fiona's fury.