Ontario snowstorm forces stranded holiday shoppers and travelers to overnight at Walmart store

Customers stranded at a Walmart in Chatham, Ont., inflate air mattresses in the checkout area.Judy Lagasse/Handout

Patti Holden was just trying to do some last-minute Christmas dinner and gift shopping with her husband and three-year-old granddaughter ahead of the holiday weekend.

Instead, she and dozens of others got more than they bargained for on Friday, when a massive snowstorm made the roads completely impassable and blocked them overnight at a Walmart in Chatham, Ontario.

“I felt like I was in one of those Christmas movies where you’re all stuck in a store on Christmas Eve,” Ms. Holden said.

About 49 shoppers and 48 store employees turned the big-box store into a safe haven after police closed nearby roads and worked with Walmart to accommodate stranded travelers. The store provided inflatable mattresses, blankets and pillows for people forced to sleep there, and brought out chicken strips, chicken wings and potato wedges from the store’s hot table to feed everyone.

M/s. Holden said the mood was a bit panicked at first, but people calmed down when staff made it clear that everyone would be receiving care. Somehow, there couldn’t be a better place to be stuck than a well-stocked department store.

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“People were coming in at all hours because they were stuck in their cars, and word was slowly getting around that you could warm up at Walmart,” she said.

“Every member of staff was amazing. At one point, someone was helping you. They all spent the night and kept in contact with the police as much as they could.

Patti Holden, Bill Holden and their three-year-old daughter, Starla, huddle on an air mattress at a Walmart in Chatham, Ontario, after being stranded there due to a snowstorm.Courtesy of family

On Saturday morning, around 30 people were able to return home when they were picked up by friends with four-wheel-drive trucks, while others without capable cars were still stranded.

Store manager Judy Lagasse said the store settled into a festive atmosphere after staff were able to set the tone for people to be looked after during their stay.

The staff even organized a small birthday party for one, with a cake from the bakery. Other workers brought in a speaker to play Christmas music, while children received crayons and coloring paper and adults received board games. M/s. Holden’s granddaughter was allowed to wander around the store and pretend to shop.

Workers rolled around large gray bins that usually contain cardboard to distribute pillows and blankets, and people filled the checkout area with mattresses.

We spent quality time with our clients. We had a few laughs, shared a few stories. It was overall a very good experience,” said Ms. Lagasse, who said she believed the store was capable of turning a bad situation into a good one.

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“There were a lot of unanswered questions as we didn’t know how long this was going to be, but we tried to deal with the anxiety together.”

But while the in-store experience was positive, Ms. Lagasse and Ms. Holden said some people were sheltering from a truly dangerous situation outside. M/s. Lagasse said there was a large pile-up in the road outside Walmart, and Ms. Holden said a person was dragged into the store after crashing into a ditch.

The road to Walmart runs through open fields where huge snowdrifts were blowing in gusts that Environment Canada said were around 80 kilometers per hour. Wind temperatures reached -30 C.

M/s. Holden said she recently moved to town and didn’t realize the stretch of road to Walmart could get so bad in a storm. They tried to drive home from the store twice on Friday afternoon, only to find the roads impassable even for their four-wheel-drive truck.

Navigating the parking lot was also dangerous: some cars were perched on top of curbs they hadn’t seen due to the height of the accumulated snow.

“You were just rolling through walls of snow, and you had no idea how bad it would get,” Ms. Holden said.

At first, the family was told by the police that they would have to hide in their truck, which led them to worry about what would happen when their gas ran out. They were grateful when they learned they could shelter at Walmart.

M/s. Lagasse said there were also people stranded there from out of town, such as a mother and son who were on their way to Toronto from Wisconsin before getting stranded.

The store manager said police hope the roads will be clear enough for people to leave at some point on Saturday as around 20 people remained sheltered in the morning.

M/s. Holden, however, wasn’t one of them, as she was finally able to drive home when the road conditions were good enough for their truck.

Christmas will not be the same for her family this year: it will be the first time she will spend the holidays without all of her children after two of her sons were unable to travel from Kitchener due to the weather.

But she will have a son and his family for a Turkish dinner – just without the trimmings, following her shopping experience cut short on Friday.

“It’s definitely making the best of a bad situation,” she said.