The Squamidian Report – Feb. 9 / 08

 

Issue #298

 

Also in this issue:

More about that storm from Vivyan

The Ontarion

 

Hi All,

 

As of the first of February all gas stations in BC are pay-at-the-pump, or pre-pay first at the counter. Customers can no longer fill their tank and then go into the cashier to pay. This ‘pay before you pump’ policy is the result of pressure on the provincial government to make it the law as a result of many gas and dash problems that culminated in the death of a young high school student who was working a night shift at a gas station and was run down by a punk who valued the gas over the life of the attendant. He dragged the body seven kilometers and then just kept on going. This new law, known as ‘Grant’s Law’ after the young man who was killed, also legislates that after 10pm all gas station and convenience stores must have 2 people in attendance or if only 1 person is working, that person must me protected behind a locked barrier.

 

There is no difference for anyone who uses a card at the pump, just for those who pay at the counter. It makes life a lot easier and safer for the people who work at the gas stations. I was surprise to find out just how costly the gas and dash problem was for all the stations. The one I use regularly down below here loses over a thousand dollars a month, every month, as a result of people who fill up and then leave without paying. The usual time is during a Friday evening when the pumps are very busy and it’s hard for the attendants to tell who is who, or at night when no one is around. The jerks simply drive away before anyone can get their license number.

 

So it is good legislation, making it safer for everyone and harder for the low-life jerks. That’s the way it should be. However, this law might not have been necessary if BC wasn’t so soft on criminals in the first place and was more interested in handing out proper sentences. As it is, criminals in BC literally get away with murder.

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And those winter storms just keep on coming. Interestingly, the storms in the west and on the coast are treated differently than the storms in Central and Eastern Canada. Environment Canada will issue a weather watch or weather advisory when 5 or 10 centimeters of snow is expected in the east but only notice the same thing in the west if it is going to impact a major urban area. The Weather Network, based in Mississauga or some such place, will go into it’s ‘Storm Watch’ mode when an expected storm might move through Ontario, but will barley notice a massive Pacific storm moving onto the west coast.

 

We had a typical winter storm blow in off the Pacific on Tuesday bringing massive amounts of snow to the Coastal Mountains and heavy rains to the lower coastal areas. While the Weather Network was busy tracking a potential storm that might hit the central or eastern parts of the country later in the week, they virtually ignored the current conditions in the west. They didn’t notice that we received 6 inches of snow in Squamish in just 2 hours before it went over to driving rain. They didn’t notice the ongoing heavy snowfall happening further into the mountains. Actually, I don’t mind the East ignoring the West, it’s kind of nice to be flying under the radar. But it is another example of why the West refers to Toronto as ‘the self-acclaimed center of the universe’.

 

We’ve had double the usual number of ‘snow events’ on the coast so far this winter and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight. We’ve had a permanent cover of snow on our usually green lawn since before Christmas. The locals are referring to it as a good old fashion winter like the ones they had when they were kids. It’s become quite common for commercial vehicles to ‘chain up’ before heading north up #99 to Whistler. Private vehicles are encouraged to carry tire chains at all times or stay home. Proper winter tires are a must unless you like seeing ditches from the inside. Silly me, I had hoped to catch up on some dirt biking this winter. Heck, even snowmobiles are finding the snow too deep for travel up the logging roads.

 

And as I write this, most of the major highways in the BC interior, including the Trans Canada, are closed due to avalanches.

 

doug

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More about that storm from Vivyan

 

I was working at the Dairy Queen during the storm Gale was talking about.  I opened the store at 8:00a.m. so I was there before it got too bad.  My co-worker, Barb, who came in normally around 10:30 or 11:00a.m. decided not to come in and my boss, Noreen, phoned me and told me to go home.  By then it was getting bad and I told her I had no intention of driving in it, so I kept the store open.  As all other eating-places were closed I had the busiest lunch hour I had ever had.  Schneider truck drivers and Coke drivers and the mechanics from Stedelbaurs were all hungry and had no desire to drive in it.  Finally one of our regular customers who lived on Old Chicopee and who had a pickup truck with more power then my car offered me a ride home.  Like Gale I left my car and he took me right to my door, thank goodness.  My car was completely buried in the snow so it took us a long time the next day to get it out.

 

As for people staying over night at our place in a storm, that happened many times.  After one of the birthday parties for Lorne’s mom we had people all over the place.  We gave Emma and Edna our bed and the rest were up for grabs with people sleeping on the floor, etc.  Lorne tried to open the road to the east (as River Rd. wasn’t built yet) Doug’s tractor was here at the time.  Our neighbour, Albert Arndt, objected to Lorne making a track through as he figured he would be expected to go to work.  With family still around and a large freezer, I always seemed to find enough food that no one starved.  It was always fun.

 

I also remember a Christmas Eve when our furnace quit.  Thank goodness we had our air tight wood stove downstairs and, of course, the oven was going hard as I always have my Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve.  So with a couple of electric heaters we made out fine and Al eventually got the furnace back on.  But why does it always happen on the coldest day?

 

Vivyan

 

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THE ONTARION REPORT

 

Hello everyone!

 

I know we just about beat the “Snow Storm” theme to death last week but with all that going on and Uncle Russ inspiring me with his former policing career stories I’ve found myself thinking back on that year and other great winter storms we’ve had here in our area. I found a picture in my WFD scrap book tonight that was on the front page of the “Local” section of the KW Record back in of all months April of 1975. It shows five of the guy on my crew including me (I’m the guy working the hardest on the left) shoveling snow on the front driveway of the WFD Head Quarters on Weber St north near University Ave. The guy in the middle facing the camera and doing the least became our Chief about 15 years later! LOL! I’ve attached the picture to this Ontarion and asked Doug to post it so you can all see that we fire fighters didn’t just spend our “non-fire fighting” time playing Euchre in the basement of the fire hall. This particular storm was a dandy! The record headline says 9” of snow were expected but when all was said and done, I recall that we had over 16” in a 12-hour period. It was quite a snowfall for the middle of April!

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One other very heavy snowstorm that comes to mind was one that had us pulling double duty. We were on the last day of a four-day shift of days. When on days, we worked from 7am to 5pm each day for four days in a row. Then we would have four days off and come in at 5pm on the fifth day and work from 5pm to 7am the next morning for four nights in a row. The day shift was a total of 40 hrs and the night shift was a total of 56 hrs. Since we were on the last day of our 4 days for that week, we were looking forward to going home that evening. About 10am it started to snow like crazy. We were out no less than 4 times that day shoveling that front “apron” so the trucks could get out without any problems. This storm was in the late 70’s so it just might have been the same storm that you were all talking about last week in response to the Ontarion column. We actually had improved our situation and talked the Chief into investing in a snow blower for each station by then. Even with the blower working, we were all out with shovels as well and had a heck of a time keeping up with the amount of snow that was accumulating that day. There was a very strong wind blowing all day long as well and it made the snow drift in very deep piles. We had been called by the city Works department and been warned that the roads in Waterloo were treacherous and many of them impassable. They told us that if we called the Works office when we were responding to anything during the storm, they would send out a couple of plows to our location to help us get through if necessary. We thought that if we could make it to 5pm we’d be heading home and the storm would probably be over. Well, we were wrong! A lot of our replacements lived a long way from the fire hall and only three had made it in for duty by 5pm. The Chief asked if we would mind working through the night as well if our replacements didn’t make it to work. What the heck could we say? We couldn’t very well leave the trucks unmanned. Besides, if they couldn’t get in to work, the chances were that we wouldn’t make it home from work either! At HQ there were nine of us that stayed on duty from the day shift and the three guys that headed for home wound up coming back to spend the night at the hall too. The three guys that had their replacements make it in to work were able to sleep for the night. The rest of us ran all night long to call after call. I remember that we had a report of a fire in a garage attached to a house on a side street in the Fischer-Hallman and University Ave area. That was in Station #2’s area but they were at another attic fire in a house on William St so couldn’t respond. HQ had to take the call. Needless to say it was a long slow drive to get there from Weber St. We managed to make it up University Ave ok but when we turned on to the side street leading to the Cresent location of the garage fire we were actually pushing snow like a plow with the big front bumper of the Pump. We managed to make the turn onto the Cresent location but the truck bogged down as soon as we made the corner. According to the running card (6”x 8” cards with each street map on it) the house we were heading for was only 8 houses down from where we were stuck in the snow. The Lieutenant told us to grab a couple of portable extinguishers each and we would walk to the fire. There were three of us on the back of the pumper. Two of us were what we called “hose men” and the third was a “hydrant” man. The Hydrant man was told to stay back and find the nearest hydrant in the snow in case we needed water to fight the fire. There was so much snow coming down that we couldn’t see more than 5’ in front of ourselves. The Lieutenant held on to our coat sleeves so we wouldn’t get separated in the blowing snow. We managed to make our way to the location of the fire and the owner had the foresight to keep the door to the garage closed and the door to the house from the garage closed. In doing this he contained the fire pretty well. His car was stuck on the street so the garage was empty for the most part. He had put some ashes out from the fireplace into a plastic garbage pail in the garage. He thought they were out and cold but obviously he was wrong. The garbage can caught fire and ignited a large shelving unit across the back wall of the garage. We opened the side entrance “man door” to the garage and managed to hit the fire with a couple of 25 lb dry chemical extinguishers. We got lucky and extinguished the majority of the fire with that first attack. Once we had most of the fire knocked down, we opened the main garage door at the front and ventilated the smoke and heat. With that done, we could see what we were doing and managed to get the rest of the fire put out. It’s very difficult to see what you’re doing with all that smoke etc floating around in the room, especially at night in a snow storm! LOL! Luckily we had pretty bright hand held lights that helped illuminate the garage. If we had opened the main front door before hitting the fire from a small opening, we would have run the risk of causing a sudden burst of flame known as a “back draft”. I’m sure you have all heard of this phenomenon. This would have been on a smaller scale than most but still, the sudden introduction of fresh air and oxygen into an oxygen starved super heated room will cause one hell of an explosion and that was the last thing we needed that night with no proper hose lines to fight the fire. As it was, the ceiling and interior walls of this garage were coated with plaster as was the requirement of the Ontario Fire Code for an attached garage. The plaster was the only thing that kept the fire from spreading into the attic of the garage and extending into the house. This family was very lucky indeed! After making sure the fire was totally out and the Lieutenant had all his report information we headed back to the truck. It’s amazing how poorly lit a fire truck is even with all the red lights flashing when it’s in the middle of a blizzard such as that night. We were unable to back up out of the mess we were stuck in so we had to call the Works Dept to send a plow out. They arrived in about ten minutes and quite easily pulled us backwards down the street until we were clear. They plowed their way in to find us so the driving out of the side street was much easier. The whole ordeal took about

2 ½ hours from start to finish and luckily we didn’t have any other calls while both stations were busy at fires. I don’t recall exactly how many more runs we made that night but we were out several more times. It’s hard to believe that people were stupid enough to drive their cars in a storm like that, especially late at night but after midnight we responded to 2 MVC’s (Motor Vehicle Collisions) as well. People are truly as crazy as the weather and they’ll never change. We were finally relieved of our duties by 9am the next day and with the plows working over night the roads were in passable shape. That was the longest night I had spent at work to that point in my career. Of course there were many more major fires I attended where I had to stay on duty overtime but I don’t recall any being in the middle of such a heavy snowstorm. It did however seem that many of our worst fires were during bad weather either in rain or snowy conditions and that’s all part of the job but fires were always easier to extinguish if we weren’t hampered by Mother Nature.

 

Like uncle Russ and his policing exploits, I’ve got a million stories from my fire fighting days but I’ll limit myself to one main thriller per Ontarion. I hope you all enjoyed this one!

 

Thanks again for all your great stories about your snowstorm adventures last week. Keep ‘em commin’ please!

 

That’s it for this week. Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to talking to you all again next time in The Ontarion Report!

 

Bye for now… Greg.

PS: Something To Think About>

The most wasted of all days is that in which we have not laughed!

 

Firefighters Shoveling Snow!

 

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The Family Site:

http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/

The Squamidian Site:

http://www.thedougsite.ca

The Biking And Stuff Site:

http://www.thedougsite.net

Have a good one..

the doug

 

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