Climbing the barn roof, shovels and bars in hand, the risk of roof collapse became a reality for the Thurler family.
“It went down in one big wave. Just collapsed right there, trapping 20 heifers inside,” said Oliver Thurler, from his family’s dairy farm near South Mountain, Ont.
None of the family members were hurt.
Dropping to its gutters at 8 a.m. Jan. 11, the heifer barn was survived by three others on the Thurler’s 220-head farm. An ice load more than 10 centimetres thick on the barn’s roof, accumulated over five days of freezing rain, had created a dangerous situation.
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A late milking was taking place in the parlor as a new generator hummed a reassuring note, providing enough power to operate the milking machines following the power outage. It appeared the family and cattle would weather the storm.
After a 24-hour wait for a backhoe to remove parts of the barn from around the 20 trapped Holsteins, five animals had to be shot because of their injuries.
“Now we have to turn to seeing about a new barn,” said Thurler. “So far the insurance company tells us we aren’t covered for ice storms. We’re trying to fight it, though. Maybe there will be some compensation from the government. It would help. In the end though, a $500,000 barn has collapsed and we will have to rebuild it.”
The ice storm that has taken so much from so many in Eastern Canada has forced farmers to turn to one another and use resourcefulness to survive. Disasters like the one that befell the Thurlers have not been common, say officials, but some rural residents will have to go without electricity for as long as two more weeks, say the Ontario and Quebec electrical utilities.
“We’re lucky,” said Thurler. “We have milk pick up. Other farmers east of here don’t. We have a generator, lots don’t. We weren’t hurt when the barn collapsed. We lost some cows. We’ll get through it.”
