Dunrobin's Heart and Soul Café to reopen after tornado strike

Two weeks after a tornado slammed into Dunrobin, one business at the heart of the west Ottawa community is getting set to reopen.

The Heart and Soul Café is expected to open for business Saturday morning. The café was damaged by the tornado — one of six to touch down in the Ottawa-Gatieneau region on Sept. 21 — and co-owner Jim Bowen has been dealing with contractors and insurance companies ever since.

"[It was] just a blur. I mean, it's gone so fast and it's been nothing but work, work, work, work, work," he told Ottawa Morning's Robyn Breshnahan.

"Nobody is sleeping right now. There's just too many things to consider."

'It's really quite humbling'

The damage at the café wasn't as severe as some other buildings and homes in the community. The gift shop Bowen ran inside a yurt next door, for instance, was pulled apart by the twister.

"Luckily, we had a power failure and we sent the clerk home about half an hour before the storm hit, or she would have been over there [in the yurt], too," Bowen said.

"The gift shop itself, for all intents and purposes, is a complete write-off. There's no stock left. Half the stock is over there in the wetlands, and that's it. It's just gone."

The café has been feeding volunteers and helping out where it could, Bowen said. One of the silver linings that's come out of the tragedy, he added, is how much the community has come together.

"We've had volunteers in from other parts of the province, and the generosity is just — it's over the top," he said.

"It's really quite humbling how customers, staff, friends, and just perfect strangers have been here to help, to donate, to offer. It just really is humbling."

Close call 

Bowen took a long pause to keep his composure before telling Ottawa Morning about the extent of the damage.

"[It's hard to believe] just how close we came [to disaster], and the fact that we came through," Bowen said, his voice breaking. "There were no fatalities here."

He said it's been hard talking to people who've lost everything.

"They're completely traumatized, and you can just see the despair when you talk to them. It's really, really rough, and it's going to be a long time coming back."

Bowen said he hopes the city steps up to the plate, because he has heard from several people struggling to get demolition permits.

"We're two weeks in right now. These houses are obviously knock-downs, and the bureaucracy just carries on," Bowen said. 

"They're treating it like business as usual, and these poor people who are completely traumatized can't even start to rebuild because they can't get a permit to demolish the thing."

Ottawa city council has voted to waive demolition fees for the neighbourhoods hardest hit by the Sept. 21 tornadoes.