Province pursuing feds for financial assistance, working to help those who lost wages, says premier

Thursday marks seven days of a state of emergency that shut down St. John's, and while other surrounding communities have lifted their orders, officials are advising things won't be back to normal any time soon.

People are still digging out of their homes amid the ongoing state of emergency in the capital following Friday's record-breaking blizzard, and some officials are beginning to estimate the cost of the disaster.

St. John's is slowly coming back to life, with the city allowing business owners and community organizations to access their properties Friday at 6 a.m. to begin preparation for reopening Saturday morning, which is when the city expects to lift the state of emergency — though officials will still have to confirm that decision Friday evening.

Businesses and community organizations are permitted to call in staff, have suppliers make deliveries and have any technical or supportive services completed that may be required to open. Businesses and organizations — other than ones covered by current exemptions — are still not permitted to open to customers or clients until the state of emergency is lifted.

Mount Pearl, Paradise and Torbay will have their states of emergency lifted completely on Friday.

Premier Dwight Ball said Thursday afternoon that the province has asked the federal government for consideration for financial assistance stemming from the ongoing cleanup.

Ball anticipates the cost to municipalities to total in the millions.

For those who have lost wages due to lost hours of work from being under various states of emergency, Ball said the province is checking with federal programs, such as employment insurance, to see what can be done.

"There's no requirement for an employer under the existing legislation to pay employees in this situation," Ball said.

Small businesses have felt the squeeze from not being able to open their doors. Ball said discussions will need to be had once things return to normal regarding programs to help small-business owners, but for now the province's priority is low-income earners and people who have lost wages.

"With any review we need to make sure the employers and the employees are part of those amendments or reassess what the appropriate legislation will look like," he said.

"Right now it's very difficult to know what the magnitude of the requirement will be."

Conception Bay South Mayor Terry French believes that town alone will need tens of millions of dollars to get back up to speed after storm surges pummelled the harbour.

"We have basically a new coastline. A new beach. Our beautiful trail system has been destroyed in many areas," French said.

"We have our storm sewers that have been torn up from the ground."

Bonavista took a similar beating. Mayor John Norman says extensive damage to the town's sea wall will require costly repairs.

Numerous sections of the levee either failed or completely collapsed and disappeared into the ocean, Norman said, and pounding surf eroded land between the shoreline and oceanfront homes.

"Homes that used to be 30, 40 feet from the water, in some cases, their fence line is now five feet from the water," he said.

The town is pressing the federal and provincial governments for emergency financial help.

St. John's Mayor Danny Breen said he hasn't yet considered how much the storm will cost the capital city, since there are more pressing matters to deal with.

"Cost right now is not a concern. We need to get the snow moved," he said.

Ball said communication between neighbouring communities has continued daily, and as some have been able to clean their streets quicker than others, it allowed for those resources to be redeployed to the capital city. But as for a regional state of emergency plan — instead of individual municipalities deciding on their own — Ball said it wouldn't be fair to those who can lift the emergency earlier.

"It would be difficult to hold those communities back. I think everyone understands that," he said.

"If you want to make sure that you can actually do a better job the next time, the responsible thing to do is get everyone in the room again, do the debriefs, learn lessons. There's some areas where they've excelled at, and there's no question there's areas where we can potentially improve."

Daily life slowly resuming

The City of St. John's announced it's confident the state of emergency order, which was called midday last Friday, will end early Saturday morning.

"We felt it was important that residents have some time frame to work within, where they could have an expectation of when they could start getting out and around," Breen said early Thursday.

Breen said the city chose a hard date to have an "orderly transition" back to normalcy, and to give people and businesses time to prepare.

Until then, people continue to emerge from snowed-in houses, and the City of St. John's continues to lift restrictions on what can open.

Doctors, dentists and vets are allowed to operate Thursday, and taxis can run as normal.

Food stores, pharmacies and gas stations may open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Schools and government offices remain closed, but executive-level officials must report to work.

Memorial University announced on Thursday that it will be extending its winter semester to make up for lost time. The semester will end on April 9 instead of the originally slated April 3. The student study break — between the end of classes and the beginning of exams — will be reduced to three days instead of four. There are no changes to the week-long winter break for students.

Eastern Health said it will be back to full services Monday. On Thursday, the health authority said it is still focusing on urgent and emergent services for Friday.

Eastern Health said it will be contacting patients directly for rebooking appointments at the Health Sciences Centre, Janeway Children's Health and Rehabilitation, the Dr. H. Bliss Murphy Cancer Centre, St. Clare's Mercy Hospital, Waterford Hospital and Dr. L.A. Miller Centre.

On Wednesday afternoon, Brig.-Gen. Roch Pelletier said the Canadian Armed Forces effort in Newfoundland is still receiving an influx of calls from people needing help getting out of their homes.

The emergency operations centre has logged more than a thousand calls since opening earlier this week, according to the province.

Provincial Municipal Affairs Minister Derrick Bragg said the direct line set up to reach military units has been bogged down by non-priority calls, such as people on vacation asking for their cars to be dug out, making it difficult for military members to reach people who are in need of priority assistance.

"I'll give you an example: earlier this morning we went and we visited a gentleman 89 years old. He's ex-military, he's got a son with a disability, he was snowed in. He could not get out of his house," Bragg said Wednesday.

Those in need of help can call 311, 709-754-2489 or 709-729-3703. For the hearing-impaired, text 709-691-9493.

The province added another help line, run by the Canadian Red Cross, on Thursday due to the influx of requests. That number is 1-800-863-6582 and will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Clearing help coming from all sides

Army reserve units weren't the only ones landing from afar in order to help the region recover.

Jim Roberts, a heavy equipment operator from Forteau, drove to St. John's from Labrador to help clear snow.

Roberts and a colleague brought in a front-end loader and snowblower, driving about 1,000 kilometres to help widen streets. He lugged the equipment on a trailer to the ferry crossing.

"We didn't have any issue getting over," he said. "I can see they can use the help."

Roberts says he's looking at long days. "We'll run as many hours as we can."

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