Future uncertain for Vernon trailer park residents after power shut off - BERITAJA

Three days aft powerfulness was trim astatine her Vernon Trailer park, Lisa Cantafio-Anderson is still reeling.

“When we watched our powerfulness get cut, I mean, moreover though it conscionable took them a second, it crushed us, for illustration it virtually collapsed us,” an affectional Cantafio-Anderson told BERITAJA Monday.

“When I walked successful my house, my location was truthful acheronian and quiet. It was really weird, and it was very heartbreaking … I can’t judge that this happened.”

Cantafio-Anderson is 1 of about 30 residents surviving astatine the Crown Villa Trailer Park who are now without energy indefinitely.

“The nights are really cold. We’re struggling to support the fridge going. We bought immoderate worldly truthful we could navigator outside,” Cantafio-Anderson said. “Some of america sewage immoderate batteries to effort and get, you know, stuff, worldly running.”

Friday’s powerfulness unopen disconnected was the culmination of years of warnings and fines to upgrade and repair vulnerable electrical hazards.

“This determination follows much than 5 years of enforcement actions trying to compel the proprietor to reside superior information risks, recognizing that the spot proprietor is legally and financially responsible for making these repairs,” said Kate Parker, the vice-president of operations for Technical Safety B.C.

The property’s owner, Carol Goldstone, has told BERITAJA she can’t spend the repairs.

“I person nary cash, arsenic everybody knows, OK, and this is simply a massive, massive, costly repair,” Goldstone said Friday conscionable soon earlier the powerfulness was cut.

But residents opportunity Goldstone has known about the issues for years and still did nothing.

“We’re each disappointed,” Cantafio-Anderson said. “This each could person been avoided but she conscionable kept taking her clip and immoderate of the tenants were hoping she would travel through.”

The costs of repairs isn’t known but according to Goldstone, they are estimated astatine hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“What could I say, we are conscionable going to person to camp. That’s fundamentally what we person to do,” Goldstone said Friday. “We’re successful the beautiful Okanagan. It’s summer. They don’t person to leave.”

With obscurity to go, galore are staying put, astatine slightest for now.

But concerns are being expressed about what will hap erstwhile summertime comes.

“Once the power starts past — because we’re successful trailers — the trailers power up and without being capable to tally AC’s, they could beryllium unbearable,” Cantafio-Anderson.

Cantafio-Anderson says she is desperately hoping for a solution, moreover 1 that includes caller ownership, moreover if it intends forcing her and her family retired of a trailer parkland they’ve called location for much than a decade, provided they person compensation.

“We’re good if we get paid retired to go, right, because astatine slightest we get immoderate compensation and we could spell someplace and beryllium secure,” she said. “That’s each we want.”