Disaster relief

Local Anglicans were part of the relief effort for the people of Badger, Nfld., who were forced out of their homes by a wall of ice after three rivers surged over their banks and converged on the town in mid-February. When temperatures dropped below –25 C degrees, the town became locked in ice, and some residents reported over a metre of ice inside their houses.

Rev. Randy Lockyer, incumbent at Holy Trinity, Grand Falls – Windsor, about a 20-minute drive from Badger, said most people had come to Grand Falls to seek shelter in an old nursing home or stay with friends and family. The churches in Grand Falls, which include two Anglican parishes, took turns cooking meals for displaced families and were part of a community planning meeting led by the Red Cross and Salvation Army, which co-ordinated the disaster relief efforts.

The Red Cross issued a plea for $250,000 in disaster relief funds to help the people of Badger. The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund sent $5,000. By mid-March only 400 residents had gone back to their homes. Some homes sustained such extensive ice and water damage that they were permanently uninhabitable.