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Article on the 25th anniversary of Hurricane Hazel, with recollections from Marsh and Bradford residents

G. Van der Kooi, F. Weening and Sjeord Van der Kooi stand with the flooded Marsh behind them.

"Toronto - The Canadian Mobile Home Association has announced an offer to provide more than two hundred mobile homes at cost price to victims of the Ontario flood. The C.M.H.A. has pulled its dealers from Winnipeg to Quebec City. Mobile homes can be made available on twenty-four hours' notice and hauled immediately to the stricken areas. ..."

"The washed out bridge on Concession 14, West Gwillimbury, might have claimed the lives of two brothers, Eddie and Paul Renald. Going to the store at Fennells for groceries their car plunged into the swollen stream at the washout and was carried about 100 yards downstream and cast up into the bush a total wreck. The brothers smashed the windshield and managed to crawl out and reach land but one suffered a broken arm and both were badly bruised and cut."

Notice article on health and safety recommendations of flood affected areas due to Hurricane Hazel.

Two 'notice' articles for home owners and helpers of flood relief.
"Notice to Owners of Dishes at Town Hall
All who have sent pots, pans and dishes to the town hall with food are requested to call at the town hall as soon as possible and pick up their belongings. Workers can't look after the quantity of containers that is accumulating and you will help them by attending to this matter promptly."

"Advice to Owners of Submerged Motors
One of our local garage men has suggested that owners of all motor vehicles and motorized equipment, which has been submerged in water, heed the following advice: 'Do not turn over motors until magnetos and ignition system have been thoroughly dried out.' "

"Immediate credit, to the extent of $100,000 by the Provincial Government, was promised by Premier Leslie Frost within a matter of minutes after his arrival by car to attend a meeting with the Holland Marsh Emergency Relief Committee, held in the Township of West GWillimbury municipal office on Monday. ..."

"After visiting the scene of the marshland flood here on Monday, attending an organization meeting and promising $100,00 to start the work of clearing and rebuilding, the Premier returned again yesterday, this time accompanied by Ontario Minister of Agriculture Thomas. ..."

Description : "Reginald Kuzyk was 30 years old, and an employee of the department of Highways, back on October 15th, 1954, when Hurricane Hazel hit.
The storm brought torrential rains and flooding. Dams burst, and homes were swept away in the floods. A total of 81 people lost their lives in Ontario. The floodwaters had washed onions from Holland Marsh fields and heaped them on the highway in "gobs.... I never seen so many onions in one place. They were all over the ground, and everywhere." He also remembers seeing two homes, which had drifted on the floodwaters until they washed up next to the highway. By the time Hazel blew itself out, more than seven thousand acres of farmland on both sides of the 400 were under water, covered by a lake more than 7' deep in places.
George Sadovchuk's described the Marsh after Hurricane Hazel as "it was just a lake. It was very impressive to see all that water where once was viable land... I was just amazed at the destruction that took place."
Relief efforts brought the homeless into Bradford, to the Town Hall, where they were clothed and fed by volunteers. A total of 25 pumps took about 4 weeks to drain the fields, at a peak pumping 220,000 gallons per minute. But it would take months to clear the debris and repair the damage. Seventy families - 350 men, women and children - spent the winter that followed in a trailer park, set up by the Rotary Club on the site of the Bradford Arena.
The sky was appropriately grey, for Sunday's historic tour of the Holland Marsh. The tour not only commemorated the 200th Anniversary of Yonge Street, but also the 42nd anniversary of Hurricane Hazel."

"Holland Marsh residents and everyone living in this district will always remember "Hurrican [sic] Hazel" and the worst storm in Ontario's history, a storm which inundated the rich Holland Marsh gardens, ruining all crops yet to be harvested, sweeping buildings away in the water currents, and submerging some of the most beautiful homes of the district under feet of dirty water. ..."