Twice-displaced Abbotsford woman calls for more disaster supports

After rising floodwaters forced Danielle Rayner to evacuate her rented townhouse in Abbotsford, B.C., in November 2021, she says she still had faith she could rebuild her life.

But just six months later, the Abbotsford condo building she had hoped would be her new "safe haven" was consumed by a massive fire that killed one of her beloved cats and is now the subject of more than a dozen lawsuits.

"PTSD is an understatement," Rayner, a grandmother, told CBC News in an interview. "It was like the straw that broke the camel's back. I thought I was strong and then that happened."

Two years later, Rayner says losing two homes in a row has devastated her finances, sense of security and mental and physical health.

She's calling for the provincial government to provide more long-term housing and mental health supports for people forced from their homes by disaster, as she's worried for thousands of others displaced each year who find what she said were "inadequate" resources.

And one expert says short and long-term mental health care is "vital" when responding to disasters, particularly as climate-driven events are expected to intensify and displace more and more people.

Rayner says it's not just people who were displaced, and a building that burned down.

"It's my brain and my heart that feel like they're displaced," she said, adding that her two surviving cats, Pickles and Diamond, are also grieving.

Like thousands of others in Abbotsford and the Sumas Prairie, approaching floodwaters forced Rayner to evacuate her townhouse with her three cats in November 2021.

The retail manager says her landlord paid for her to stay at a nearby hotel for a couple nights until, the city's emergency operations shelter gave her a voucher to cover the room and three meals a day for nearly a month.

But after the floodwaters receded, the unit was no longer safe to live in, due to electrical damage and mould, according to an inspection report and photos Rayner shared with CBC News. 

She says she didn't have tenants insurance for her furniture and other possessions that were damaged beyond repair.

Rayner says she used a $2,000 one-time provincial payment administered by the Red Cross to cover the damage deposit on the new condo, which she moved into in December, and Rayner says a woman donated furniture to her through a local thrift store.

But early on May 3, 2022, Rayner says she was getting ready for work in her new place when she heard a big bang right outside the top-floor balcony.