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Local Company Volunteered Time And Equipment To Help People Dig Out After 140 Cm Of Snow Dumped On Cottage Country

KAWARTHA LAKES- Thomas Marshall has seen a lot of snow in his ten years on the job but nothing compared to what hit cottage country in early December.

“That was the most snow I’ve ever seen in my life,” I’ve been doing snow removal for over ten years now and honestly that was insane” Marshall told Kawartha 411 News.

Snowfall in the Muskoka region during December storm courtesy Thomas Marshall

Environment Canada says approximately 140 cm hit the Muskoka area during the storm, setting new snowfall records.

Marshall is the owner of Thomas Marshalls Excavating in Kawartha Lakes. He says when he heard about people being stranded under mounds of snow he wanted to help out. He took five crew members and his equipment and headed to the Bala area. They spent three days from November 30 to December 2nd plowing and digging residents out, all free of charge!

“We saw that there was a lot of snow up there and we figured we would go and help out. I figured if we got that kind of snow here there would be a lot of people that would be really snowed in and I know they don’t have a pile of equipment there and I wanted to help out.” he says.

Courtesy Thomas Marshall

Marshall says while he was happy to be able to give back and help others, the experience also helped him.

The Bala Bay Inn gave them five rooms for free for two nights and residents were buying them breakfast and coffee. When gas and diesel ran out another local company called Round 2 Contracting headed north with cans of fuel they donated so the crew could continue their work.

“Sometimes I don’t believe there’s a lot of good left in the world but that made me realize there’s more than I thought. I had kind of lost hope but everyone was just so helpful and so grateful. Everybody was really, really good to us.” said Marshall.

And he hopes that if we ever need help in Kawartha Lakes in the future those he helped will pay it forward.

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Pamela Vanmeer
Pamela Vanmeerhttps://www.kawartha411.ca/
Pamela VanMeer is a two time winner of the prestigious Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) Award. Her investigative reports on abuse in Long Term Care Homes garnered international attention for the issue and won the Ron Laidlaw Award. She is a former reporter and anchor at CHEX News, now Global Peterborough and helped launch the New CHEX Daily, a daily half hour talk show. While at CHCH News in Hamilton she covered some of the biggest news stories of the day.

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