'It failed him': Lack of cell service left man killed in Alonsa tornado with no warning, grandson says
Jack Furrie, 77, was found dead outside his destroyed home after EF-4 tornado Friday evening
As a Manitoba family mourns Jack Furrie, the man killed in a tornado on the weekend, his grandson says bad cellphone service in the area meant the 77-year-old wasn't warned about the storm in time.
Kelly Brown remembers his grandfather as a kind, generous and funny man who couldn't leave the house without bumping into a friend, neighbour or former student who wanted to chat.
"He was my best friend," Brown said Monday. "I don't know where to go from here now."
Brown lives in Winnipeg now, but said he grew up in his grandfather's home in the rural municipality of Alonsa, about 165 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg. Furrie had lived there since 1974, Brown said.
On Friday evening at around 9 CT, an EF-4 tornado touched down in the region and moved through Alonsa, Silver Ridge and Margaret Bruce Beach, leaving behind a path of destruction as wide as 800 metres.
Furrie had a Bell MTS landline and cellphone, Brown said. The cellphone had worked well until earlier this summer, when the telecommunications company did upgrades to two cell towers in nearby Ebb and Flow and Amaranth, Man., which many community residents said left them with little to no cellphone service at home.
Since the changes, Furrie had had "no service at the farm whatsoever," Brown said, so he couldn't receive a cellphone emergency notification about the tornado sent out to warn residents.
"He was still paying to have a cellphone and it wasn't working. He had no chance to get any warnings because of it," Brown said.
"The warning system just didn't work for him. It failed him."
A spokesperson for Bell MTS told CBC on Sunday the company recently upgraded wireless sites in that area to the LTE Advanced network, but some pockets where coverage was already limited may have seen reduced coverage.
Those areas generally use slower HSPA technology, which isn't compatible with Alert Ready notifications, Michelle Gazze said, adding the company is working on a solution.
That was the same response the company provided almost a month ago, when people in Alonsa complained about their reduced coverage after work was done in the area.
"Our engineers are currently analyzing network data to see what remedies might improve coverage in this area," Bell MTS said in a statement in July.
On Tuesday, after being presented with the concerns of the Furrie family, the company sent an email saying it had nothing to add to its statement from the weekend.
'Complacency and negligence'
Brown said when he turned on the TV Friday evening and saw news of the tornado, he instantly called his grandfather. When Furrie didn't pick up, Brown started calling neighbours and they didn't pick up, either.
Sometime between 10 and 10:30 p.m., Brown said he got the phone call that his grandfather had been found dead outside his destroyed home.
"We don't know where to begin," he said. "It's just, everything is gone. There's nothing left."
Brown said his grandfather isn't the only person who relied on cellphone service as a lifeline.
Alonsa Reeve Stan Asham raised safety concerns following the upgrades in June and reiterated them on Monday.
"For our emergency stuff, we need it here," Asham said Monday. "We had it not bad, you know, but now you can't even text, so when this came up, a lot of people never even got any warning on their cellphones."
The Association of Manitoba Municipalities says it's a widespread problem.
While association president Chris Goertzen acknowledged that the market dictates where companies set up towers, he says they can do better.
"We've been advocating for some time to have government sit down with the telecommunications companies and work with them to improve service for all Manitobans," he said.
Premier Brian Pallister said he's looking into what went wrong.
"I am interested to know what happened there, because there was mobile service available two or three months ago I understand, from some of the folks I talked to yesterday," he said Tuesday.
Brown said it's not right that paying customers didn't get cellphone warnings because of the service disruption.
"Their complacency and negligence on this has cost us our whole entire life," Brown said through tears.
"We have nothing left to save there. It's just wiped off the earth. And it's a little late for sorry now, but it's better than nothing."
