{"id":5189,"date":"2014-01-15T14:16:59","date_gmt":"2014-01-15T19:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=5189"},"modified":"2014-01-15T14:16:59","modified_gmt":"2014-01-15T19:16:59","slug":"ice-storm-cost-aurora-over-40000-as-aurora-seeks-disaster-relief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/ice-storm-cost-aurora-over-40000-as-aurora-seeks-disaster-relief\/","title":{"rendered":"Ice storm cost Aurora over $40,000 as Aurora seeks disaster relief"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cleanup and other issues stemming from the pre-Christmas ice storm have cost Aurora approximately $40,000, according to Mayor Geoffrey Dawe. <\/p>\n

Estimates have begun to come in as Aurora has made the first steps for any disaster relief the Province of Ontario might be willing to hand out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a combination of our staff overtime and additional contract services that we have brought in,\u201d he said. \u201cThe contract services are mostly along the lines of additional crews to clean up branches, chippers, and things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mayor made his estimate ahead of a Special Council meeting which, in addition to instigating a review of Aurora\u2019s garbage and waste contract with Green for Life, also included a call for the Province to include Aurora in a \u201cdisaster area\u201d to be included in Ontario\u2019s Disaster Relief Assistance Program to deal with the aftermath of the storm.<\/p>\n

In his motion, he cited residents experiencing \u201csubstantial damage\u201d to their properties as well as municipal properties and infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the event the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing declares a disaster area in the GTA for the purposes of the Ontario Disaster Relief Assistance Program, the Council of the Town of Aurora hereby requests that the Town of Aurora similarly be declared a disaster area for the purposes of the program,\u201d said Mayor Dawe in his motion. \u201cFurther, given the extent and the magnitude of the damage experienced in [York Region], if the Province does not declare a disaster area, the Province instead consider providing funding related to the severe ice storm costs from sources other than [the program] and if the Minister [declared] a disaster area regarding the private component of the program, Council will immediately, under the authority of the program, appoint members to a disaster relief committee to administer the program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Replacing trees, added Mayor Dawe, is estimated to come in at $92,000, which would be beyond the Ontario Disaster Relief program.
\nFollowing the storm, Aurora received some assistance from Newmarket in providing Aurora with some much needed hydro.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the people of Aurora ought to know the Town of Newmarket came immediately to our help and I don\u2019t think they even needed to be asked,\u201d said Councillor Evelyn Buck at Saturday\u2019s budget meeting. <\/p>\n

The Budget meeting also underscored the importance social media played in keeping residents abreast of what was going on outside of their doors, as well as its limitations. <\/p>\n

Speaking towards an increased emphasis on the budget on social media outreach by the municipality, Councillor Chris Ballard highlighted issues experienced online by PowerStream, for instance, which experienced phone outages to keep residents informed and social media is only as good as your power and devices.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cleanup and other issues stemming from the pre-Christmas ice storm have cost Aurora approximately $40,000, according to Mayor Geoffrey Dawe. <\/p>\n

Estimates have begun to come in as Aurora has made the first steps for any disaster relief the Province of Ontario might be willing to hand out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/2014-01-15-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1lH","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-28 06:09:14","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}