Christine Whelan FEO, February 2, 2023, VOL. 4 ISSUE 12
Nigel Hay seemed to be one of the best sources covering December’s storm, if not the best. He was also one of the first to start warning the Greater Fort Erie area to get ready for a “once-in-a-generation weather event”.
Britain-born, Nigel has lived in Canada for 23 years. He’s been living in Ridgeway for the last 10 years with his wife, Dani.
“I’ve been fascinated by storms since I was a kid. I lived by the ocean. Living here, down by the lake, it’s the closest I can get to that feeling.”
Nigel is down at the lake every day, checking water levels and monitoring other subtle and not-so-subtle signs of impending change.
Formerly Nigel’s Cheap Vlogs, Hay has been covering a wide variety of the Niagara Region’s events and activities on YouTube.
Now with Fort Erie Vlogger, Nigel is documenting all the storm systems that travel over us and along NE Lake Erie.
Recently, he uploaded a video, The Perfect Storm: Blizzard 2022, Crystal Beach, as well as several smaller videos, covering December’s storm, from the moment the system termed a “bomb cyclone” was spotted, to the shocking and unusual aftermath.
When I spoke with Nigel on January 10, he said he still felt drained.
Nigel says when he’s documenting a weather event, he likes to tell the story. “I like to get out before the storm comes to give a visual, then show it as it comes in. I like to tell the story of how it unfolds.”
When the Warnings Began
It was Nigel’s Facebook post on Sunday, December 18 of a storm system shown in blue, purple, and yellow that caught my attention. He was giving a heads-up to all of Southern Ontario, but more specifically to the Greater Fort Erie area; to get all Christmas shopping done. There was a “major and dangerous storm” predicted to come in on Friday and stay until Saturday. Rain, a flash freeze, snow, and very powerful winds.
According to his video, “amateur meteorologists” predicted the storm nearly two weeks before it arrived.
“I don’t predict the weather but I follow these guys,” Hay started. “I listen to what they say. Quite often they are completely split in opinion. But after a couple of days this time, everyone’s opinion was very much the same. And I thought, well, this is rare.” And so, he continued to pay attention.
“A week prior to the storm, the reports came back that it was either going to hit Lake Erie hard or slightly north or slightly south. This was spot on. It came straight for Lake Erie.”
Nigel explained it was Monday, December 19, that the mainstream weather reports started coming out. “They were not focused yet on the impact of the storm but on the travel disruption, with it being Christmas.”
He was thinking, “This looks like a big storm. It’s going to ruin a lot of people’s Christmas, whether they are traveling or not. It’s going to have a major impact.”
136 km/hr wind speeds just off Point Abino were predicted, “Which is enough to really push a so-called seiche, which is what caused most of the destruction in the area when the water levels were raised about 2-3 metres (8-10 feet) very, very quickly. Add a flash freeze., it was just destruction after that.”
What is a Seiche?
According to the National Ocean Service, a seiche is a standing wave oscillating in a body of water. If you have observed water sloshing back and forth in a swimming pool, bathtub, or cup of water, you may have witnessed a small-scale seiche. On a much grander scale, the same phenomenon occurs in large bodies of water such as bays and lakes.
Lake Erie is known for seiches, especially when strong winds blow from southwest to northeast.
Preparation and Infiltration
“Just after 9:00 am Friday, December 23, the storm came rolling in fast for a 60-hour blizzard.”
Nigel, with his 4×4, was prepared to be a part of the rescue and dressed accordingly. Although, he knew his limits and respected them to keep himself safe.
“I had packed the day before, an emergency kit, blankets, and candles just in case I got stuck but I knew the area I was going to cover was going to be Crystal Beach and Ridgeway. I wasn’t going any further for the fact that, if I got stuck, I could walk home to my house because I know the area and I’m close by.”
Ready for anything, Hay infiltrated the storm.
In his video, Nigel described Crystal Beach as a lunar landscape. “The creepiest and scariest thing.”
He talked about a man he came across and helped. “His son had taken off to find his dog and hadn’t come back.”
After he shared the teamwork involved to locate the boy, Hay added, “That was a long 30 minutes.”
Nigel spoke to some people who had just recently moved to the area. They were trying their hardest to get their cars out and were getting stuck. They were in despair and wishing they had not moved to the area, that they didn’t realize the weather was going to be that bad in the area. Nigel reassured them, the storm is being called a “once-in-a-generation storm”. They do not happen that often.
Bridge Of Communication
On his Twitter account, Hay was communicating with Fort Erie residents, informing them what areas had no power, for example, giving people a sense of what was going on in real-time.
The comments on his posts provided a bridge of communication, many from out of town, requests to find out about loved ones who were trapped in the blizzard. “These were people who were out of town but who knew what Crystal Beach is like during bad storm weather, who have lived here, and were panicking.”
From Documenting To Welfare Checking
Nigel eventually had to get to Fort Erie for a signal. But he was getting so many messages from people asking him to check on their family members.
“So, I actually did a couple of welfare checks for people who reside in Toronto and were worried about family members.” He mentioned he rescued a few people that night before going home.
“I was out for five hours on that Friday night, driving around, helping people. I didn’t see one fire truck out. I drove past the fire hall so many times. The trucks were all in there. The lights were off. The cars were there, in the back. There were no police cruisers anywhere. I did see a paramedic’s vehicle struggle to get somewhere. It was the only emergency vehicle I saw in the whole five hours I was out there.”
The Perfect Storm
Hay explained, “I named it The Perfect Storm on my video because all the ingredients lined up. If one ingredient was taken away, it wouldn’t have been as bad but the fact is, it all just came at the right time and it just hit our area.”
He continued, “With the winds, the direction of the wind, the temperature dropping drastically, the water levels rising. And then it got blocked by high pressure on the east coast which means it kept the storm over us for two solid days before it could escape.
“Of course, as soon as you’d drive out, past Stevensville along Sodom Road, to the QEW, it’d change.” Nigel described the phenomenon that all long-timers of the area are aware of — the Bermuda Triangle-like flip of weather that is experienced once driving past this area. A storm often oddly ends, sometimes replaced with a cloudy calm. A few minutes down the road, possibly sunshine and clear ground can fascinate.
“I get to Niagara Falls and I’d feel like I was in a different world.” Adding, “And no one believes what we went through.”
Acknowledging The Experience
Nigel spoke with many people during and after these days. “There were a lot of scared people.”
The vlogger acknowledges the experience of the community in his video simply by making the comment more than once as he stands in the middle of the blizzard, “This is scary.”
Once Over: Surreal
“I took an emergency day off on Tuesday because I was so worn out. We’d been cold for two or three days in the house.” Gratefully, he added that they still had the stove.
“When I went back to work the following day, it was surreal, seeing nothing on the roads. And then coming home at night, it was like being in a different world. People just don’t believe how bad we got it.”
Nigel said every time there’s a storm, he’ll be out documenting it. His day job comes first but, he says you can be sure, after work, he’s out and videotaping.
Looking Forward: Creating Plans
When discussing the need for emergency preparedness, Nigel agreed that, as a community, as family units, and as individuals, we need to have plans. And we can learn from December. “We never know, it might happen again for the next generation, or it might happen again next year, maybe next month. We never know.”
Nigel has been asked by the Bertie Historical Society to do a presentation entitled, The Christmas 2022 Blizzard. It’s scheduled for 6:00 P.M. on March 15 at the Crystal Ridge Library.
To check Nigel Hay’s video, The Perfect Storm: Blizzard 2022, Crystal Beach. the coverage on the geese rescue, follow-up footage on the storm, as well as a wide variety of weather-related and non-weather-related videos — or vlogs, as Nigel calls them — go to YouTube and search Fort Erie Vlogger. You can also find Nigel Hay on Facebook.
“I was uploading on Twitter all the way through the 23rd and 24th.” More in-depth coverage in smaller clips has been uploaded onto his Twitter account, @FortErieVlogger.
Photo by Nigel Hay
