Two months after Hurricane Fiona swept Charlottetown, student leaders at the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI) are thinking ahead to how their community will respond to the next catastrophic weather event that strikes.
The Category 4 tropical storm, which arrived to P.E.I. in late September and caused multiple fatalities in Atlantic Canada, brought trees down across the campus and left most of the university without electricity.
“There were plenty of trees down,” UPEI Student Union (UPEISU) president Adam MacKenzie recalled. “We’re fortunate that that was the extent of the damage at UPEI. There was no capital damage—no damage to any buildings or any facilities.”
In the wake of Hurricane Fiona, the university provided hot lunches and dinners, warm shelters and other vital resources to hundreds left vulnerable. UPEI’s women’s hockey team helped cut down broken and precarious trees and clean up branches and other debris. Many lower-profile services were quickly made available to the community, including shower and warming facilities, charging stations for electronics and mental health resources.
“We were all in shock a little bit,” Nicole Phillips, UPEI’s director of communications and university relations, said. “But there were really a lot of silver linings in what was really a catastrophic storm for P.E.I.”
UPEISU created a $5,000 emergency funding service that quickly dispersed $100 to 50 students facing financial challenges amid the storm, thanks to a collaboration between the provincial government and United Way of PEI. Another UPEISU program has continued to offer $50 Walmart gift cards to students needing financial assistance to buy groceries.
“There were a lot of things happening that were not necessarily high profile,” Phillips said. “Lots of people were offering their homes for showers if they had power, and UPEI’s administration really tried to make the campus as accessible as possible.”
According to MacKenzie, students living in one section of off-campus housing that continued to have power welcomed student residents from an area that lost power so they could cook and shower.
“I know a lot of students dreading when the next hurricane or the next storm is going to happen because they’re scared that they’re going to lose their jobs or they won’t have spots to live anymore.”
Leena Daboo, UPEISU vice-president (finance and administration), wants to see emergency preparedness kits financed for future weather emergencies, which the university considers to be a form of crisis. These kits would include necessities such as canned food, candles and matches. It’s not a definitive plan, Daboo explained, but UPEISU could use money from its food bank to finance such resources.
“I know a lot of students dreading when the next hurricane or the next storm is going to happen because they’re scared that they’re going to lose their jobs or they won’t have spots to live anymore,” she said. “It does create some type of trauma, which is very valid for anybody who has gone through a bad experience through the hurricane.”
Daboo said budgeting kits for another 50 students and purchasing emergency items largely from dollar stores would be realistic. She added Hurricane Fiona served to demonstrate the resilience of students at UPEI and she hopes to see community organizations work together more to serve the university the next time a serious weather event occurs.
“Whenever there are hard times like this, we need to problem-solve and find solutions as quickly as possible,” Daboo said. “It showed me how all of us are here to support each other during times of crisis, and how quickly we can help the community.”
Now, she’s looking ahead to the winter.
“It’s P.E.I.—we know a lot of snow storms will be happening,” Daboo said.
The federal government notes P.E.I. residents are vulnerable to hurricanes in the fall and experience blizzards and ice storms during winter. MacKenzie said priorities in future extreme weather events should be ensuring Wi-Fi and electricity stay on and pre-planning warming centres and soup days.
“[Hurricane Fiona]’s one of the worst yet and, with climate change rapidly getting worse, the hurricanes are only going to get worse,” he said, adding he hopes the university and UPEISU can collaborate on an official plan to respond in future weather emergencies.
On Nov. 25, students and faculty from UPEI’s School of Climate Change and Adaptation participated in a roundtable discussion with Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair after he announced $1.6 billion in new federal funding toward climate adaptation and disaster resilience and response.
Featured image provided by Anna MacDonald/UPEI.
