April 20, 2025

Letter to the Editor: The Town of the Blue Mountains failed residents in a time of crisis

"These photos don’t show the worst of this devasting seven-to-ten day event… and counting! Ice over one inch thick!" said Elizabeth Marshall.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR — Perhaps there should be some clarification regarding the statement made pertaining to the Town of the Blue Mountains (TBM). It is stated in the article "Grey Highlands ice storm response called into question:"

Lemoine's complaint regarding the collection of debris, was backed up by another affected resident. Marion Bartlett added her own assessment in a letter to Council. "We had heard that the Town of Blue Mountains, Mansfield, Mulmer and other municipalies were providing tree chipping and removal service, free of charge for their residents," she said.

The TBM was even worse than Grey Highlands. In fact, I have a brother who lives close to Brewster’s Lake and, yes, they were without power for days but in the TBM we had an entire 'sub-community' completely cut off for days. No ability to get out, no food, no water.

Below, please find my letter, which had been forwarded to the Members of Council, where the Mayor continues to ignore and/or even answer any questions. This may expand on the ice storm issue.

“Firstly, I would sincerely like to thank all of the Hydro One worker’s and all of the other Electric Companies that came, to the Town of the Blue Mountains, over this past week. Amazing people! They came from Nawash Utilities, Thunder Bay Hydro, Barrie, Hastings, etc., etc., etc. The patience, understanding and humour they brought with them, while they continue(d) to work hours, upon hours everyday — late into the night, was inspiring, to say the least. Thank you to all of you — your hard work continues, but I/we wanted everyone to know how much we appreciated what you have done for us, here, in the rural areas of the Town of the Blue Mountains.

Now for the 'Fail Army' that is called the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and the Senior Management Team, in the Town of the Blue Mountains (TBM). Harsh, you may think, but there should be staff fired and the Mayor should resign.

People’s lives were in serious danger and people could have died and yet there was no State of Emergency called. Were they merely inept? Were they over-whelmed? Were they merely careless or were they just so unconcerned about the people living without food, water, medical supplies, or even emergency access that they sat on their laurels, had their pat-on-the-back meetings and neglected to even inform the other members of Council?

There is still, as of this letter, a community without electricity because of the hydro polls and wires being worked on. This Council and staff left people to basically die. This is how repugnant this was to humanity.

This municipality sent out notifications and post information ONLY by means of the Internet. The people who didn’t have electricity couldn’t even access the information, so people didn’t even know what was going on, what to do, or even where to turn to. But it didn’t really matter because the notices consisted of: a person could go to the Community Centre or the Fire Halls to get showers and if you need water you could go to the local water tower, in Thornbury.

One issue — the majority of the roads, in the effected areas were posted closed and some roads were flooded out. What was even crazier was that the TBM, in conjunction with Grey County, had the roads posted closed — but there was no one to enforce said closures, so the tourists came to see the damage.

The “gawkers” came in droves interfering with the Hydro workers and the residents, who were 'local traffic,' from getting things done. At one point and time, the hydro workers had to dodge 62 vehicles per hour because there were signs but no one there to stop people from driving through them.

Personally, I saw one worker almost get hit by one of these gawkers. Then there were the idiots who merely went around the signs to take the 'short cut' to town. And we can’t forget the one idiot who, to get around traffic and a barrier, cut across someone’s front yard and got stuck. He completely ruined their lawn and he just didn’t care.

All of this falls on the TBM — but I/we are not finished yet.

The TBM, on day three of this catastrophic event, sent out the fire department in groups of three, to do wellness checks. The kicker was that they came to your door, asked if you needed anything and then left. They didn't have any notices, any information, NOTHING! No water for people who hadn’t had access to water for days, no food, no fuel — NOTHING!

One senior contacted me to say they only had one OPP officer come to their home during this entire emergency — NO ONE FROM THE TOWN was sent.

Two days after the fire department did their one 'wellness check' to make sure the TBM met it’s obligations, at least the OPP started to check up on people and they actually tried to help — except they weren’t allowed to sit at the top and the bottom of County Road 119, while it was closed, to stop the gawker tourists. This was because the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor shirked their responsibilities to the residents and did NOT call a state of emergency.

The administration staff were even worse. They were called on more than one occasion and they had the excuses and statements down pat. "This is a county road so there is nothing we can do," (they said,) even after it was explained that allowing traffic, on such a scale was dangerous to the hydro workers and that the traffic took these workers away from their work. That didn’t matter to upper town staff.

But if there had been a State of Emergency called, things could have been done. The other patent statement by upper management was they would take it to the daily briefing. Now I don’t know about you, but if it was explained that the hydro workers safety was in jeopardy, one would think that the town would do something, right?

Not in the TBM. The only town staff that did anything during this emergency were the roads crews and the crews working on the wastewater in various areas to try and stop the overflowing of the waste water. The Upper management, particularly the acting CAO should be fired — PERIOD!

These people left the elderly, the sick, people on oxygen, all to rot. They undermined the hydro workers and abused thousands of residents all because of what? Were they merely inept? Were they over-whelmed? Were they merely careless? Or were they just so unconcerned about the people living without food, water, medical supplies, or even emergency access, that they sat on their laurels, had their morning coffee during their pat-on-the-back meetings and neglected to even inform the other members of Council?

Some members of Council, when finally contacted, had no idea what was happening, as staff had not informed them and the Mayor had definitely not informed them either.

But, according to some, the most sickening was that the Mayor could do her promo for Bloomberg — a U.S. fund on climate change; she could do a public meeting on tourism — but she and the rest of that idiotic committee that met every morning, couldn’t even take a couple of hours to come and see the devastation.

These are truly sickening people, ergo the demand that the CAO be fired and the Mayor needs to resign — these people left people to die and that is as sick as you can get!

Outrage doesn’t even cover this callousness and as one staff member said, "you folks, in the rural area, just aren’t from Lora Bay, so you don’t even register on the Mayor’s or the CAO’s radar."

Don’t take my word on this. Talk to the rural residents and the hydro crews doing the work — they’ll tell you. The Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Senior Staff are the 'Fail Army' and they need to go!

Elizabeth Marshall
Author, Director of Research, Ontario Landowners Association

 

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