Sanctuaries destroyed: After Fiona, Burnt Islands residents look for a path forward

Paula Keepinggazed at the ruins of her home, where she lived for 24 years, hand over her mouth, tears streaming down her face.

"I lost everything," said the Burnt Islands resident Monday.

"You can't even tell where my house was. There's nothing there, only rock. That's it. There's no foundation there, nothing."

Her three-bedroom bungalow and everything inside has been reduced to a pile of rubble. She's lost family keepsakes, including a ring belonging to her mother, who died 20 years ago. Keeping said she doesn't know what her future holds.

"I don't know where I'm going to start," she said.

Keeping moved into the house when her daughter was nine months old. The sea has touched her home before but never like this.

On Saturday, astorm surge generated by post-tropical storm Fiona took the house off its foundation and smashed it back down. Keeping's home is one of nearly 100 and counting destroyed by Fiona as it ripped through southwestern Newfoundland on Saturday.

The federal and provincial governments have promised help and Keeping said she's banking on that support as she rebuilds her life.

She doesn't know where she's going to go but she knows she won't be living on the coast of Fox Roost.

"I don't know where I'm going to uproot and go to, but it won't be here," she said.

'Really, really scary'

Nine-year-old Bentley Taylor said he hasn't felt safe since Saturday's storm.

"It's been really, really scary, and I wanted to leave really bad," he said.

Bentley's mother, Wanda, said she's terrified too.

"I don't think I'll ever feel safe here anymore," she said.

She prepared for the storm on Friday evening, and packed her vehicle. When she saw the waves coming over her street Saturday morning, she woke her kids and pets and they fled.

Her home, where her family has lived for 13 years, received some damage, but was spared from the destruction suffered by others. Still, she said her family won't be staying there.

"If you don't trust it, if you don't feel safe, I don't see the point in staying," she said through tears.

Help needed

Burnt Islands Mayor Alfred Taylor said the damage is heart-wrenching.

"What we worked for all these years destroyed, in minutes," he said.

Taylor said recovery will be a long process for the community of about 600 residents. At least 30 fishing stages are gone, and, according to area MHA Andrew Parsons, at least a dozen houses have been destroyed.

"You're walking into another world," Taylor said.

Taylor said the town needs help with cleanup and with repairing roads, a causeway and other infrastructure.

"A small community, without help, will never bounce back," he said,

A home covered in seaweed and sand

Wallace Kinslow, who has lived in Burnt Islands for 50 years, woke up Saturday morning to his house shaking and water coming through the door. He woke his wife and sons and they fled.

The force of the storm surge twisted the structure of the home, and the water damaged the inside beyond repair. Kinslow said after the storm, the interior was covered in kelp and sand.

He said repairs would cost more than $100,000 money he doesn't have. Kinslow, who is retired, also doesn't have homeowner's insurance.

"We done this, me and the wife, so we could have somewhere that would be comfortable [for] us. Our home, our retirement home. That's what it was," he said.

Kinslow is staying with his son and has registered with the Canadian Red Cross for housing support.

Kinslow said the community in Burnt Islands is strong it's survived storms before, and the collapse of the cod fishery in the early 1990s.

"This has gone over and above what we ever went through," he said.

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