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Y O U R C O M M U N I T Y N E W S PA P E R • F O U N D E D I N 1 8 9 1 • W W W. T H E P R O G R E S S . C O M • W E D N E S D AY, N O V E M B E R 2 5 , 2 0 1 5
Chilliwack starting to rally for Syrian refugees Jennifer Feinberg The Progress It’s is not known yet how many Syrian refugees will eventually resettle in Chilliwack. But volunteers and resources are being quickly corralled in Chilliwack, It hass b bee been eeen with at least local fundincredible two raising events to witness slated for next month to help the sponsor one family. outpouring war-torn Immigration Minister John of McCallum was generosity expected to clarify Tuesday and the exact numsupport ber coming to B.C. of the refugees ~ Amber 25,000 that Canada has pledged to Price accept. “It’s a huge undertaking for a short period i d of time to complete that kind of resettlement effort,” said April Neave, who coordinates Immigrant Services for Chilliwack Community Services. They are still in a “wait and see” mode, until the federal government announces further details on their resettlement plan. In the meantime, the local Community Services is part of larger umbrella group now creating a “provincial map of current and potential capacity of communities to resettle Syrian refugees,” in the short and longer terms, Neave explained.
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Fierce winds take toll on local roofs Jennifer Feinberg The Progress Roofing companies have been dealing with emergency repair calls across Chilliwack in the wake of last week’s fierce wind storm. Roof shingles and overlay flew off hundreds of homes in the gale force winds of up to 70 km/hr last Tuesday. Fraser Valley Roofing fielded about 350 service calls, mostly to repair various types of wind damage, said general manager Ron Peters. They have about 70 roofers and at least 10 have been chipping steadily away at the backlog, even putting a halt on their other jobs to focus on this.
“Putting up tarps, that’s mainly what we’ve been doing,” said Peters. “We’re sealing them up and getting them watertight.” The estimates and repairs have started, as owners get insurance quotes. “Some people are upset; others are understanding about the waits.” Heavy winds swept across Chilliwack, tearing shingles and underlay off the bare plywood. In some cases even the plywood came up. Sardis area was the hardest hit, said Howard Schlamb, GM and owner of Chilliwack Roofing, which employs about 30 roofers. “It’s the worst storm we’ve seen in 25 years,” he noted. “Sardis was the hardest hit, south of the
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highway, from west of Vedder to Lickman Road.” About 150 service calls came in that were storm-related, and they have a couple still under tarps. They use a synthetic felt tarp to protect roofs from water damage. “But we’ve serviced all our calls we got last week, and did our emergency repairs,” Schlamb said. Now the roofers will be going back and either re-roofing or conducting permanent repairs. Home owners are facing costs anywhere from $150 for a basic repair of a few shingles, up into the thousands if they end up losing the whole back end of a house. “Typically we’re seeing damage to roofs that are at their life expectancy, or in some cases, improperly installed,” he said.
Penfolds Roofing out of Vancouver hasn’t seen a deluge of service calls, but the calls out of Chilliwack definitely went up. “We probably saw an increase of up to 15 per cent,” said field supervisor Jason Apps. Most calls were for asphalt shingles blowing off, damaged flashing, or even trees crashing down on roofs. “Some we have to patch up.” Penfolds fielded most of the storm related calls from Chilliwack, Abbotsford and the North Shore. “We’ve had those bad storms before. It seems to be once or twice a year around this time. It causes quite a bit of damage.” jfeinberg@theprogress.com twitter.com/chwkjourno
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Jami Stebbings of Fraser Valley Roofing checks out just one of the homes damaged in last week’s storm. Workers have been scrabbling to tarp the spots ripped clean by Tuesday’s winds before replacing the shingles.