SaltWire E-Edition

‘It was like a freight train’

Glace Bay family has neighbour's roof from a street over crash into their home

JEREMY FRASER jeremy.fraser@cbpost.com @Cbpost_jeremy

Hearing loud noises and bangs and having things fall off shelves in their home isn't something that's uncommon for Sean and Amy Casey.

The Glace Bay family lives in the last home closest to the cliff on Tenth Street and has been there through various storms, including hurricanes and post-tropical storms, for the last 30 years. Even on normal days, the sound of the water from the Atlantic Ocean banging off the shoreline came be loud.

While the family thought they had experienced everything possible when it comes to storms, they admit they'd never seen anything like posttropical storm Fiona in their lifetime.

"It was a non-stop roar," said Amy Casey, who along with her husband lives in the home with their eight-yearold daughter.

"It was like a freight train going through the house continuously with the massive gusts coming. I was sitting there, and I kept saying to myself 'Please be over, please be over, please be over.'"

During the peak of the storm on Sept. 24, a corner of the family's roof began to lift and was slamming down and making noise. If that wasn't frightening enough, the roof of a home a street over landed on their property, smashing into the house and their vehicle.

"It cleared the power lines and flew over another house and dug into the yard and rolled over here," she said,

looking up at her neighbour's roof right next door that's no longer there, but rather across the street.

"It's insane what happened. The roof took a destructive path."

TERRIBLE TIME

While the home suffered minimal damage, the storm couldn't have come at a worse time for the family.

Earlier this month, Sean Casey was involved in a motor-vehicle accident, which left the family with only one vehicle — now damaged from the storm. Despite everything, they continue to be positive

about the situation.

"There has been a lot of personal stuff going on in our life right now," said Casey. "We're having trouble finding something (a vehicle) with everything going on, now we don't have the work van and it's going to be hard for us, but we'll figure it out, things could be worst."

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Cape Breton to get a firsthand look at the devastation caused by post-tropical storm Fiona. Touring the Tenth Street area of Glace Bay, Trudeau visited the Casey family home.

Sean Casey was surprised to see Trudeau walking down the street and even more shocked when he approached the front door.

“It’s been a long time since I've been shocked to bump into a personality or person of any sort, nobody told me he was coming,” said Casey. “I saw a crowd of people and I told myself that looked like Prime Minister Trudeau and he walked over and shook my hand."

In their quick conversation, Casey said the prime minister ensured him everything was going to be OK.

"He said that there was definitely going to be help coming and everything would be OK," said Casey, a former cartoonist for the Cape Breton Post.

"I never thought I would be moved by a politician coming over, but he flew from Ottawa and came here and shook our hands and that meant something, I thought that was really good."

Through it all, the Casey family remains hopeful.

"Our neighbourhood has been devastated," said Amy Casey. "We stand here, and you can easily count nine houses without roofs off in this area, so we're very lucky and hopeful to get some help."

ATLANTIC

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2022-10-04T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-10-04T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://saltwire.pressreader.com/article/281569474616002

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