A 90-year old woman, Carrie Ricketts, is isolated at her home in Knights Cove, Bonavista Bay, without food or electricity and requesting assistance from anyone who can help.
Ricketts lives on the east side of Knights Cove and was closing up her home, leaving for a winter in Toronto, when hurricane Igor struck.
“My niece’s husband came out to drive my car back and they were going to drive her back to the mainland for me and I was flying out. We left yesterday morning and got five car lengths and couldn’t get no farther. The road was completely washed out,” Ricketts told The Telegram at 4 p.m. “I’m supposed to be flying to Toronto now. I had my reservation to leave 2 o’clock.”
Ricketts said there is currently no way out of her community with the roads washed out.
“On account of me leaving to go to Toronto for the winter, I had no food. There’s nothing here,” she said.“That puts me in a hard bind.”
The relative who came to drive Ricketts to St. John’s for her flight was able to borrow food from a neighbour Tuesday. They were given bread, a can of spaghetti and part of a pie. Today, the neighbours were able to spare a couple of potatoes to help the pair through today. Ricketts also has some frozen fish and berries she was going to bring back to her children in Toronto that she will be eating.
Ricketts said she can cook because she has a wood stove. The power remains out in the community. She is drawing water by hand from her well.
Aside from concerns about available food, Ricketts said her home was damaged in the storm, with a window being lost and rain coming into one of her rooms.
“There’s no one living here only this lady, my friend down the road and there’s another family across from them,” Ricketts said. “I phoned (MHA) Roger Fitzgerald’s office this morning and I told ‘em my situation and I asked them what they could do and they said they were flooded with calls from Bonavista and elsewhere and that’s it.”
Ricketts raised her eight children in the community and has spent at least part of her year there for about 65 years now. She currently summers in the home.
Her daughter, Winnie Quinn, contacted The Telegram to ask for assistance for her mother.
“She’s a very strong person. Not given to ‘poor me’ at all. She called this morning and there was a break in her voice and she said to me ‘Winnie, you have no idea of the damage’,” Quinn said. “All day yesterday we were in touch with her and into the evening.”
Quinn said she is growing increasingly anxious over her mother’s situation.
“She doesn’t even have the means to make a loaf of bread. There’s nothing,” she said.
Both women are asking anyone who might be able to provide help to make contact.
