Battery area coming back to life after avalanche sparked evacuation
Combination of residents, city workers clear out historic city street
Chris Brookes spent Wednesday morning trying to lure his chicken off the cliff behind his house in the historic Outer Battery area of St. John's.
If he can get the chicken back in its coop, his life will be pretty much back to normal after an avalanche slammed into his house Friday night during one of the worst storms St. John's has ever seen.
Brookes and some fellow Battery residents were evacuated in the middle of the storm.
"It was in the teeth of the storm. It was really terrible," he told CBC Radio One. "Suddenly, three abominable snowmen appeared coming up the steps and turned out to be three firemen."
In recent days, a massive cleanup effort has taken place — both to clear out a house that was filled with snow when the avalanche burst through the kitchen window, and to clear the narrow streets outside.
A team of residents with shovels took to the driveways, while three city snowblowers cleared the road. Brookes called them all "snow angels."
Brookes said he could have taken his car out of his driveway if not for the sixth day of the state of emergency continuing Wednesday. Residents are advised not to drive unless it is absolutely necessary.
He lives in one side of two houses joined by a single porch. Brookes owns both sides, but rents the other side to a friend. She suffered the brunt of the avalanche, with her windows being smashed out and the floor covered with snow.
Firefighters walked through the snow all the way from the Battery Café, a few hundred metres with snow up to their waists.
When they arrived, they helped shovel the snow out of the house.
"Without their help, there would still be snow in the living room next door," Brookes said. "They were really, really terrific. That they would come all this way in that kind of a storm is pretty special."
The Battery has been battered by avalanches before, the worst of which killed four people in 1959. Measures have been taken since then to avoid a similar fate.
Brookes said he has faith in a fence at the top of the hill designed to catch falling rocks. Friday's avalanche started below that mark, he said.
Brookes isn't sure if there's still a risk for avalanche, but said it's not something he's overly worried about.
"I think everything is fine," he said. "All we have to do is make the appropriate chicken noise to get our chicken down."