On the one-year anniversary of Thunder Bay’s 2012 flood and sewage back-up disaster, a ray of sunshine emerged for victims of the once-in-a-century event.
Wayne Fletcher, chairman of the Disaster Relief Committee, on Tuesday said the province has listened to their pleas and has agreed to adjust payouts allowances to more accurately affect the true cost of the damage incurred.
It could mean as much as $1,000 for some residents, many of whom are still cleaning up the mess that was left behind last May 28.
“One of the things we’ve become aware of and have passed through is increases in building costs. So reconstruction costs have been changed to reflect the Thunder Bay norm, if you will, and that has caused us to go through files and readjust them,” Fletcher said.
“So those files are now coming closer to the estimates and to what the actual work costs were.”
Fletcher pointed to sheet rock as an example, which cost more in Thunder Bay than the province originally estimated.
“We were able to get that changed, and now we have to go through (each claim) and reflect that,” he said.
“The irony is, of all the rebuild costs, most were higher. There were a couple that were about the same. So that’s why each individual claim will be different. On average we’re seeing maybe an increase of over $1,000; some more, some less.”
Until the readjustment, homeowners facing repairs were getting about 38 per cent of their repair-cost estimate as a payout.
This won’t get them to 100 per cent, but it will make a difference.
“We’re now seeing that getting closer to the actual cost, which to us says we’re better
matching what’s happening on the ground.”
The committee remains in discussion with the province’s Ministry of Municipal Housing and affairs, negotiating the value of people’s possessions, he added.
Fletcher said there are several items he’d like to see the province pay out a much more reasonable price, one that would facilitate full replacement rather than forcing victims to buy something else or count their losses.
He used couches as an example.
Under the provincial payout plan, flood victims could claim no more than $350 for a couch. That’s not even close to reality, Fletcher said.
“You can’t buy a $350 couch, in my mind, that isn’t built out of cardboard.”
Reflecting on the one-year anniversary, Fletcher said it proved the city does indeed have a giant heart.
“It was just short of amazing,” he said, asked about the city’s immediate reaction, from the $4.2-million Safe Homes program kicked in by city council to the outpouring of support within the affected neighbourhoods themselves.
“It was great to see how people rallied together and helped each other,” Fletcher said, adding the committee and city officials learned a lot about how to deal with a disaster from the incident, which caused $36 million in damage to the water pollution control plant, $43.9 million overall.
