Rescuers evacuate 31 people from flooded trailers at P.E.I. campground

First responders pulled 31 people and five dogs from trailers rapidly filling with water at a campground on P.E.I.'s North Shore early Sunday morning after a storm surge flooded the trailers.

"We go to lots of calls, but I never, never, never anticipated anything like this," said Alan MacLeod, deputy fire chief of the Kensington Fire Department.

More than a dozen firefighters, alongside two RCMP officers, responded to the call atCrystal Beach Campground around 12:30 a.m. AT Sunday.

One by one, first responders removed people who were trapped in their trailers, which were flooded withseveral feet of water as a result of Hurricane Dorian, a powerful storm that moved through the region on Sunday, downing power lines and trees, and causing widespread outages.

After rescuing 30 people and five dogs, MacLeod said the department received another call later around 5 a.m.from one more person who was still at the campsite. Firefighters immediately returned to rescue them.

The campground'sowner, Matthew Wedge,saidhe doesn't know where to start with clearing the wreckage caused byDorian's howling winds and heavy rains.

In20 years of owning and running the grounds, Wedge said he's never seen anything like it.

"I was getting a little scared ... if it's a sign of things to come it's quite worrisome," he said.

While the cleanup effort will be costly, Wedge vowed to bounce back.

"We'vetaken many hits over the years," he said."You know, we've been down and we keep coming back."

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