Among a pile of crushed wood and seaweed, about half a kilometer from the ruins of his dream house, he found what was left of the family’s cat door. Savery, along with his wife Peggy and son Josh, lived in a sturdy 80-year-old blue house overlooking the ocean in Port aux Basques, NL The family bought it three years ago when they moved home from Barrie, Ont. and had since been renovated. They had no idea when they escaped a monster storm last weekend that the home they planned to spend their retirement in would become the face of the devastation Fiona left in Newfoundland. A photo of this blue house, floating on the edge of the rainy Atlantic on Saturday, made international headlines as Fiona splashed around in Port aux Basques. Local newspaper editor Rene Roy, of the Wreckhouse Press, took the shot before he too was evacuated. Josh Savery spent Monday morning helping his family clear the debris from their home. (Malone Mullin/CBC) The photo ended up in most major outlets in Canada, including CBC News, and was published in The Guardian, CNN and the New York Times, among others, giving a vivid picture of the devastation that befell the small town. “It’s weird seeing your house all in ruins when you’re used to seeing it the way it was, nice and pristine,” Josh says, wiping the rain from his face as he takes a short break from cleaning up the debris. “You are used to seeing it as your home. Now everyone sees it and recognizes it as that house that is being torn down by the sea.” On Monday morning, as the skies turned gray once more, Josh, Lloyd and Peggy donned work gloves and warm clothes, digging through the debris that washed ashore. Some of the salvageable items they found were not theirs. Others were. They shake their heads at the strange souvenirs they pull from the wreckage: half of a wooden Ikea bowl. A live shelf that Lloyd had just installed. A photo of Peggy and Lloyd on their prom night. They are among dozens of others in the city that have been left to clean up. “It’s not something you think you’d ever do,” Josh says. Among the debris: rope, seaweed, a large chunk of the family’s living room floor and various small personal items from the Savery household. (Malone Mullin/CBC) He describes waking up on Saturday with rain beating against the windows, the sea two meters higher than normal. “[We] he just grabbed the cats. Grab our shoes. I got in the car and he drove off,” he says. “An hour later, we see pictures of our house. It was hit by a wave and started to collapse.” Josh still looked dazed as he spoke. “It’s really, really hard to comprehend all that power in that water. Today it’s relatively calm, yesterday it was sunny skies, but the day before everyone’s lives were being torn apart,” he says. “I’ve been there and I still can’t wrap my head around it.”
“You never expect it to be your home”
The blue house had withstood eight decades of hurricane winds, countless blizzards, torrential rains. But in the end it was the sea, the same as the picturesque view from their windows, that brought it down. The family says their dream of living by the ocean is gone, washed away by Fiona. With the changing climate, they say, there’s no telling when such a powerful storm might happen again. They will not rebuild. For now, though, they’re focused on cleaning up, piecing together their lives one mud-covered souvenir at a time. The photo on the left, taken atop Fiona on Saturday, was shared around the world and published in media around the world. (Rene Roy/Wreckhouse Press, Malone Mullin/CBC) “It hurts a little, every time you see it,” Josh says of the photo. “You always see images of other people’s homes and the destruction elsewhere. You never expect it to be your home.” Through this unique image, however, he also found solace. “We get messages from all over the world,” he says, moments before turning to continue dumping pieces of his house into large piles. “It’s really heartwarming to know that so many people care, out there, about a bunch of strangers.” Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador