Week Seven – Spray Lake
Some of you may have heard about the
devastation caused by a gas explosion in Canmore. Last Friday a house exploded in town
and there is absolutely nothing left of it!
The papers say the cause is still under investigation but we at the
campground have heard a bit more about the incident because some of the guys
doing reconstruction and clean-up are staying at Spray Lake (there’s not much
accommodation in town because 700 people were first evacuated and now about 200
are still out of their homes. The guys
at the campground told us that someone working an excavating machine pinched a
gas line…the gas backed up and the house exploded. The impact was so great that all windows were
shattered in homes nearby and many suffered even greater damage. The guys said that rooves were lifted and
settled again, that fronts of houses are now concave and structurally unsound,
garage doors mangled, cars overturned…a block away
cupboard doors were blown open and dishes blown out of them. There will be at least a dozen houses that
will have to be taken down and rebuilt because they are unsafe at this
time. The pictures I’ve included here
are ones I took from the newspaper…there’s no way anyone is getting near the
damage site now. The guy running the
excavator will likely go to jail because he knew he hit the gas line but never
told anyone…the house that blew was built in the ‘70’s when they used asbestos
in the stucco…that alone will triple the costs of clean-up. The guys we talked to said the damages will
run close to 100 million if not more by the time all the rebuilding is done,
the law suits are settled, the belongings are replaced, cars are replaced, and
the clean-up is done. (a crappy old house in Canmore runs $800,000 to $1,000,000
without belongings inside…these houses were likely worth about a million or
more) Luckily nobody was killed though there were some injuries. One lady told a story of being up on the
ladder cleaning her picture window…the phone rang and she had to go answer it
and that saved her life…the house across the street blew up and if she had been
on the ladder she would have been
blown right through it. Lucky lady!
Canada Day
was unusually quiet in the campground.
We had about 35 campers. We had
expected to be full to overflowing but a nice quiet night was greatly
appreciated. We did have a few incidents
of people drinking on the beach and cutting trees down in the park so had to
call Conservation to deal with them, but all in all, it was a good week. Lots of our campers went down to Canmore on Canada
Day for the parade and fireworks so it was a nice quiet day for us.
Last weekend
two old fellows stopped at the campground.
They were nice old Italian guys both named Joe. They had been out fishing and when they
loaded their boat back on the trailer noticed a broken wheel hub. They tried to fix it but couldn’t so wanted
to leave the boat on the trailer with us till they could get the right
parts. The next day they were back but
the parts wouldn’t work and so they had to leave it and go get a new axle. A couple days later they came back with the
axle and realized they needed to drill holes in it to make it fit…luckily Tom
had a drill and bits that would do the trick.
He helped them fix the axle, put the wheels on it and got them on their
way. They were very appreciative of his
help. They went back out on the lake and
fished for a while…pretty soon we saw them driving back to our site with the
trailer but no boat. It seems that they
got out into the lake and the boat stalled and they couldn’t get it going again…if
it weren’t for bad luck they’d have none he said! Anyway, they had to go back to Calgary and
get an electric motor so they could get the boat back to the dock (they had
tied it to shore up the lake a ways) and in the meantime, leave the boat
trailer with us again. They came back
and finally got everything fixed! They
were so thankful for our help that they brought us a case of beer and a couple
bottles of wine…really nice guys!
Can’t do the blog without at least one picture of animals. These sheep are always on the Canmore hill so I see them every time I go to town. One ewe has twin lambs…they are the cutest things. I haven’t been able to get pictures of them yet, but did get this little guy under his momma’s watchful eye. Amazing how sure footed they are even this young…he was jumping back and forth over the guardrail as if it were nothing!
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