While city officials wait to see if Thunder Bay will be declared a disaster area, the city is getting funds in place in the hopes that the province will match it.
A provincial disaster assessment team is in Thunder Bay to determine if the area will be considered a disaster area. In the meantime, city council will decide Monday if it should set up a Thunder Bay and District Disaster Relief Fund to help victims of last week’s flood.
The city would put $500,000 in the fund and hope that members of the public donate to it.
“We are going to need many of millions of dollars quite honestly to get this resolved for people in their homes,” acting mayor Coun. Rebecca Johnson said.
If the city is declared a disaster area, the fund would then become eligible for money from the province at a maximum two-to-one contribution.
Tim Commisso said places like Goderich and Peterborough used the same funding initiatives during recent disasters in those cities, which net the municipalities up to $12 million once the money was matched.
“We’re obviously going to raise every dollar we can,” Commisso said. “We’ll do everything we can obviously to get as much money as we can.”
The money would help those people uninsured and most affected by the flood. Almost 500 people have called the city for assistance so far.
“People’s hot water tanks aren’t working. People need their electrical systems set up in order to get back to just having power in their house. Those are the type of things that we will have to come to grips with and deal with,” he said.
Until those homes are cleaned up, the city is urging residents to take advantage of a new shelter initiative at Lakehead University. The school’s 1,100 beds, minus the 310 currently being used by out-of-town restoration companies busy with the flood clean up, are now available to people. President Brian Stevenson said his visit to affected areas over the weekend showed him how impacted people really are.
“It was a heart breaking experience no photograph and no film can give you the sense of the loss that people have,” he said.
The Red Cross is coordinating the effort to get people into the university residences. Food will also be available there.
Thunder Bay Police Service chief J.P. Levesque said he wanted to ensure people that their homes will be safe while they are away. Increased patrols have been set up in the Northwood, East End and Intercity Area.
There have been three reported thefts in those areas, but Levesque said some neighbourhood disputes and other matters are resolved by police at the scene and aren’t reported.
“People are frustrated but seem to be getting along fairly well,” he said.
“(Theft) is a serious offense. I have assurances from the crown attorney’s office that any activity of that nature will be dealt with as best they can and will be vigorously prosecuted.”
As for the Atlantic Avenue treatment plant, city infrastructure manager Darrell Matson said one of the plant’s five motors and one pump could be running Monday. That would greatly increase the amount of pumping capacity the plant has right now.
“If we can get one pump up and running today then we can follow up with another pump in a week,” he said.
If the motors continue to he pulled out, serviced, shipped back and installed, the plant could be running at full capacity in four to five weeks. As for water conservation, Matson said he doesn’t think the city would have to wait until the plant was at full capacity before removing the request but it’s still day-to-day.
“As long as we can start moving toward what the normal daily hydraulic capacity of the plant is we’ll continue to evaluate the water reduction strategy,” he said.
