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05 | 19 | 2016 VOLUME 21 | ISSUE 19
WOOLWICH GYMNASTS HEAD TO PROVINCIALS SPORTS PAGE 11
COMMENT PAGE 8
WYNNE ENERGY PLAN YET ANOTHER SLAP TO ONTARIANS
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After initial hubbub, Syrian family settling into St. Jacobs Lodging house vacant after first wave of refugees, while support group helps large family of ten make the transition to life in Canada LIZ BEVAN
Woolwich fire crews were called to Sittler Grinding May 12 to put out an engine fire in an excavator working on a bed of wood chips.
[LIZ BEVAN / THE OBSERVER]
Fire destroys excavator at farm property north of Elmira LIZ BEVAN WORK GROUND TO A halt May 12 at Sittler Grinding when a fire destroyed an excavator in the company’s yard north of Elmira. The driver of the piece of heavy equipment escaped uninjured, but the unit was a write-off, said Woolwich deputy fire chief Dale Martin. “The machine was pretty
much destroyed. The engine was done, and the cab was all burned out,” he said, not putting a value on the damage. A brand new excavator can run up to $100,000, depending on the size. The company, which specializes in demolition and environmental waste recycling, had the excavator out in the yard, sitting on a pile of wood chips. Given all
the wood surrounding the unit, Martin said stopping the spread of the fire was paramount. “We had to soak that down too,” he said of the wood pile. “The fire started in the engine compartment and we used firefighting foam. You can use water too, but with foam, it just suppresses in more. We also laid that down on the wood pile so it wouldn’t catch fire.”
Crews from Elmira and Floradale were called to the scene, and about 25 firefighters were on hand to fight the engine fire. In a twist, there was a small incident on one of the tankers on the job. “It was just a small electrical fire. Some wires had shorted out and they were smoking. [The tanker] was back in service later that afternoon,” said Martin.
SYRIAN REFUGEES HAVE FINALLY been able to settle in and make a home in the Waterloo Region, months after arriving here. For months, the DH Lodging hotel in St. Jacobs was bustling with the newcomers, but now, the property has gone quiet. Christian Snyder is the community educator at Reception House, a Kitchener-based organization that provides housing and supports for governmentfunded refugees. He says the refugees that were temporarily housed in St. Jacobs have all found new homes to live in. “Predominantly, they moved to Kitchener, although we have a family of ten for example, that has settled in St. Jacobs. They were not originally at the
DH, they came afterwards,” he said of the one refugee family who settled in the small community. “One of the things is that we allow our clients to view a number of different housing options, and so a lot of them decided to move to where services are generally located in town. With the family that is living in St. Jacobs right now, it is a larger family – a family of ten. For them, too, to be able to have their own house is important to them.” The Karawani family, all ten of them, have been living in a three-bedroom home in St. Jacobs for nearly four weeks. They found the home through Lester Weber and a group of helping hands. They were matched up through
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