MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY — One of the Bergen-area residents whose property sustained widespread damage as a result of the July 7 tornado-producing storm said neighbours and the surrounding community have been more reliable in providing support than either the local or provincial governments.
Neran Persaud, who is an employee at the Red Deer Regional Airport and for about five years has called the rural Bergen-area property home, was working when the extreme weather hit, along the way flattening a forested area, levelling fence lines as well as damaging and destroying several outbuildings. Fortunately, his home was despite losing some shingles otherwise largely spared and he has not been forced to find alternate accommodations.
“The house was saved, although the forest just behind the house was completely demolished,” he said.
The Bergen tornado was given an EF-2 rating – zero being the weakest and five the strongest – by Environment and Climate Change Canada, which can mean winds ranging between 180 to 220 kilometres per hour. The Bergen tornado’s wind speeds were estimated at approximately 180 to 190 kilometres per hour.
“I had a forest on my property. All those trees came down and damaged all of my fence line,” he said, adding shingles were sheered right off a substantial portion of the roof of a Quonset.
Additionally, a sturdy, well-built two-horse as well as a three-horse shelter were both ripped out of the ground by the ferocious winds, he said, adding a new metal barn was also essentially written off.
“Those shelters were buried four feet in the ground with six-by-six pressure-treated posts, and it completely sucked them out of the ground,” he told the Albertan on Thursday, Aug. 25, adding the structures were thrown away by a distance of about 23 metres (75 feet).
Silver linings
As fate would have it, the horses had just one week prior been brought over to a neighbour’s property to help mow down the grass a bit, said Persaud.
“So, that was quite lucky,” he said.
And he also leases his land to a cattle producer, but the livestock – which was present at the time – escaped unscathed. Recognizing how much worse the situation might have turned out, Persaud said, “Now I tell people I’m the luckiest man in Canada.”
But he didn’t feel quite as fortunate in dealing not only with insurance but also government.
“I had farm insurance, but they told me that none of my outbuildings are covered,” he said.
While the patch of shingles on the house will at some point be replaced, Persaud said he’s still going back and forth with his insurance provider on the Quonset.
“It’s difficult,” he said when asked how picking up the pieces in the storm’s fallout has been. “I mean, I do a 10-hour day at work and then I go home and do another two or three hours.”
However, courtesy of helping hands in the community, the recovery has at least been progressing. Downed trees were largely cleared, and a barbed wire portion of a fence line was rebuilt, he said.
“Community support has been excellent,” he said. “I just cannot say enough good things about the neighbours that I have. They are some of the best people in the world.”
Outpour of support
In the storm’s immediate aftermath, folks were pouring out to offer some help, he said.
“People brought food, people brought tools,” he said. “That Saturday, I had anywhere between 30 and 50 people showed up with track hoes, cherry pickers, skid steers, chainsaws and got trees off the fence line and started restringing the barbed wire in the places where it was necessary to keep the cattle in.”
Yet work remains to be done.
“I have one section in my front pasture that has not been fixed yet. I would like the county to fix that, because it’s their trees that fell and broke it,” he said, adding he’d requested about two years ago that the trees be selectively removed to enable better drainage and prevent his property from flooding whenever snow melts or heavy rain falls as there’s no ditch on his side of the road.
“The water has no place to go,” he said. “And those trees were in the way.”
Persaud said he was told the trees would be removed and replaced with a ditch when the Bergen Road construction occurred, but added that never happened.
“The trees were left standing, and it was those very same trees that came down and broke the fence line,” he said.
Asked what kind of assistance he would like, he said, “First of all, I’d like for Mountain View County to rebuild my fence that their trees broke.”
Additionally, the hillside tree stand acted not only as an air filter – his allergies have flared since they were felled – but also helped reduce the natural progression of erosion, he said.
“Now, I understand that it’s private property,” he said. “But at least some assistance with tree planting and moving the fallen trees would be helpful.”
“Insurance companies should be taken to task”
Perhaps among the key takeaway lessons from the ordeal is ensuring one fully understands their insurance policy and specifically what it covers – and doesn’t.
“I would advise everybody – having dealt with the insurance company here now – to check your policy,” he cautioned. “We all know that insurance companies try to get away with paying out as little as they can. They have no problem taking your money.”
At $300 a month, Persaud pointed out that over time amounts to a big chunk of change.
“If I had taken that money and put it aside for the last five years, I would have had $18,000 in the bank,” he said. “It’s something people should be looking into. I honestly believe that insurance companies should be taken to task for what they don’t do after a disaster like this.”
As Persaud had farm insurance, he said he was under the impression his outbuildings and their contents were covered, which did not turn out to be the case.
“Review your policy,” he said. “Call your broker up.”
If need be, call regularly to ask questions about your coverage, he said.
“Make them work for that money,” he said. “Half the time, we get these policies and they’re written in language that we don’t understand, even though there is legislation for insurance companies to write policy in plain, layman’s terms.”
Community more reliable than government
While Persaud appreciated seeing Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre MLA Jason Nixon personally attend the scene to chat with the residents, he said no one from the federal government came to ask questions or offer support.
“When a disaster occurs around the world, Canada and our federal government are always there to help,” he said. “(But) not a single one of these guys from the federal side showed up.”
Persaud said the MP for Red Deer-Mountain View riding, Earl Dreeshen, should have come out to talk with people as did his provincial counterpart Nixon.
“It’s like we were just left alone. And I’m not the only one that feels this way. I know the neighbours felt this way.”
Asked if the community and his neighbours proved to be more reliable in times of need than government officials, he said, “Absolutely. You know, they have to have a committee to study everything in meetings to discuss what to do and how to do it. It’s the people that live in that area that has to help each other.
“We can’t depend on the government because they just lollygag on things,” he said. “Except, of course, when it comes to taking your tax money.”
