Search for those swept away by Ontario floodwaters during storm comes up empty
Picking up a discarded flashlight from the floor of a basement, a University of Victoria student begins to search through piles of belongings.
She spots a flash-light that she thinks might have been hers, and she starts to search through the contents of her apartment.
Then she notices a pair of shoes, two pairs of socks, a wallet with her name and address on it, and her computer. She also finds a small photo frame with her name and her graduation picture — all that remains of her life in B.C.
She has one shoe.
When she looks again, she sees that the other shoe was also gone, and she notices that the photo frame is also missing.
In a scene that is repeated over and over again in the basement of her sister’s Victoria apartment, the young university student is desperate to find her possessions from the flood, and she has a growing list of theories about how she can do that.
“I just found the picture frame. I’m really upset. And I’m like, oh god, I lost my stuff,” she said.
But it turns out she didn’t lose anything. Her mother has come back to take care of her.
“[My mother] has come back, she’s taking care of me,” she said. “We’re just really hoping we can find my stuff.”
The flood began Oct. 20, and has so far swept away about 1,000 people, mostly in small communities along the southern and northern stretches of the province. The list of missing and displaced persons is growing daily, with people like the University of Victoria student still trying to sort through their lives.
They want to find an address or a phone number, but they also need to know exactly how long it is going
