Residents left to pick-up the pieces following Ayr tornado

It’s been a stressful week-and-a-half for residents of Ayr, still cleaning up after the tornado on August 17.

It was the northern edge of the town that was hit particularly hard. Dozens of massive trees were torn down. The Home Hardware at Northumberland Road and Greenfield Road was heavily damaged. Empty rail cars and trailers were flipped but, there were no injuries reported.

Some of the homeowners in the affected area are now dealing with massive bills for tree removal and general clean up.

Tracy Summerville is one of those residents. She called into The Mike Farwell and said she and her neighbours feel like they’ve been left to fend for themselves.

“I was absolutely taken by surprise, and maybe that’s my naiveté, that the insurance won’t help you clean up the trees and there is no emergency fund from the municipality. So, all of a sudden you have a whole bunch of 80 ft. trees and you certainly don’t have the ability to chop them on your own.”

That means calling in a third party to take care of the debris which also means costly bills.

Summerville was quick to heap praise on first responders who were out minutes after the storm hit to make sure everyone was safe and accounted for.

“The good thing was the municipality came out really quickly. The police department, the fire department, they made sure everybody was OK. They got the street cleared, they got people able to move around. So, that was fantastic.”

But now it seems as though the onus falls on property owners to finish the work.

Summerville said thankfully, a not-for-profit did step-up to help some her neighbours.

“We did find a group that came up the street called Christian Aid Ministries. I have a couple of neighbours who are both in their 80’s who were overwhelmed with a tree that came through their house and across their property.”

570 News Radio did reach out the Region of Waterloo to find out if there were any supports for residents of Greenfield Rd.

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