Enola and Ned had been living in a tent at the beach for a couple of weeks. The church has been a warming, phone charging, water bottle filling centre. They were well informed about shelters in the area but very reluctant to go that route.
This morning, right as I was sitting down to my seminary course on Zoom (Old Testament Theology: Psalms) I got a call from Enola. The signal was terrible and we had to try several times before we got a call that worked. She said that they'd been woken up this morning when the weight of the snow on the tarp crushed their tent, pinning them from the chest down. They called 911, and first responders came through the storm and the knee deep drifts to cut them out, drag them free and drive them to the hospital to be checked out. She told me that they were ok, but they couldn't stay there.
I excused myself from the lecture. My son dug out the driveway enough to get the car free and we (very carefully) drove to the hospital in the town next door. I may have taken some liberties when it came to red lights, because I didn't want to stop and not be able to move again.
When they came out of the Emerg doors, all they had on their feet was the fuzzy pink leopard print slippers the hospital had been able to provide. Their boots were buried in the snow. Ditto their glasses.
First stop... Giant Tiger for two pairs of canvas running shoes (all they had in the right sizes) and a pair of the strongest power glasses on the spinner rack (not quite strong enough). Second stop... Tim Horton's for coffee (lots of sugar) and some breakfast.
We drove to the church where my son dug some more to get us in the door. While Enola and Ned unwound and refueled, we talked about what next steps might be. They didn't have any idea what they were going to do tonight.
I made a few calls and ended up talking to someone at the local shelter (also in the town next door). I explained the situation and the woman on the other end asked who was calling. I gave her my name and said I was calling on behalf of my friend. She said, "Oh, yes. We have a place for them. The police called and arranged everything. They have a place until January 30. You just need to get here as soon as possible." This was news to my friends, but good news at least.
Not sure how nobody told them that their accommodation was arranged, but whatever.
We drove back over there and I waited while they stood on the front porch in the cold, going through the covid screening process before being allowed indoors, with literally only the clothes they had on their backs (the shelter will provide emergency supplies) because all their stuff was buried under the snow.
A few of us decided to head down to the beach to see what we could retrieve. Heavy slogging through thigh-deep snow, hard work, but we were able to dig out some stuff that I think they'll be glad to get back - boots, glasses (yay!), propane stove, papers from the bank, radio... Loaded up the offending tarp as a sled. One small tent was still intact, so that was dragged off as was, still zipped up. It's all in storage in someone's backyard for now in hopes that it will stay frozen and not start to go mouldy.
It's been a very long day. But as somebody said, it was a WWJD thing.
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