Street Feast, P.E.I. Marathon organizers hope events bring sense of normalcy

Downed power lines, massive fallen trees and power outages in parts of Charlottetown are presenting a tricky situation for event organizers who have decided they will proceed despite post-tropical storm Fiona.

Beyond the logistical problems presented by staging a major event in a city still recovering from a disaster, organizers are balancing what local residents might think about holding festivals following the storm.

"We're very sensitive to what other people are going through and we recognize that it's been a really tough time across the board," said Ellen Egan with Discover Charlottetown.

The group is hosting Street Feast, a block party on a section of Kent Street in downtown Charlottetown Friday and Saturday. Restaurants, businesses, and musical performers will take over the block between Great George Street and Prince Street. 

The event was originally scheduled for the same weekend that Fiona hit but organizers decided ahead of time to postpone the event based on the weather forecast. 

After consultations with the City of Charlottetown and festival partners Egan said they decided to hold the street party this coming weekend, in hopes it will give people something to look forward to.

"After the two weeks people are really kind of looking for an opportunity to get out and have a little bit of normalcy after all we've been through," said Egan.

P.E.I. Marathon to go ahead with altered route

It's a similar story for the P.E.I. Marathon weekend coming up Oct. 14-16, which will see about 2,000 people lining up for various races in Charlottetown.

About half of those people are expected from outside the province. 

Race director Myrtle Jenkins-Smith said the board and committee have met daily since Fiona to decide whether or not to go ahead with the race weekend.

"We did discuss the pros and cons of going ahead, and we wrestled with that for several days," she said, adding that police and the City of Charlottetown were among those who helped make the decision.

"We realized the best decision was to move forward once we found out we could have a very safe route."

There are some modifications to the race weekend — the main one being the marathon route.

For the past 17 years, the marathon has started in Brackley Beach in P.E.I. National Park with runners racing to the finish line in downtown Charlottetown. 

But Fiona caused significant damage in the park, and large parts of it are closed to the public.

"It is really quite a mess out there," said Jenkins-Smith.

Because of this, marathoners will start in Charlottetown and run the half-marathon route twice. 

Jenkins-Smith said cancelling the weekend would have been devastating to the business community after such a challenging couple of weeks. 

'Difficult' situation for hotels

Hotel operators are finding themselves having to balance guests coming to Charlottetown for previously scheduled events and people who need a place to stay because of damage caused by Fiona, including emergency crews who came to the Island to help with power outages and cleanup, and Islanders who are still without power and are looking for a place to stay.

"It's a difficult position," said Dee Enright, director of sales and marketing with Rodd Hotels and Resorts.

"We never want to have someone leave when they want to stay."

Some people had to leave one of their hotels to accommodate a contract it had with a national soccer tournament that's in Charlottetown this week, she said. An event of that size would have been planned for at least a year or more in advance, with 21 teams in Charlottetown to compete. 

"We understand that we're sending you back to maybe not ideal conditions," Enright said.

"But as a hotel that's not anything we can control — we have to fulfil these contractual agreements."

Staff at the hotel are doing what they can to accommodate everyone, she said, even going as far as recommending other places to stay for anyone that had to leave.

Enright said some local and regional conferences have made the decision to cancel previously scheduled events and conferences because of Fiona.