A motor vehicle incident at the Westview viewpoint has resulted in damage to a metal railing and some memorial bricks sold and placed by the Rotary Club of Powell River.
Rotary club member Sean Dees said the accident happened on March 12 at around 5 pm. He said a vehicle drove over the bricks and hit the fence, which sustained most of the damage.
“The bricks are all marble, so they don’t get damaged too easily,” said Dees. “I believe what happened is when they towed the vehicle after the accident, the car’s undercarriage actually scraped some of the inscriptions on the bricks.
“There weren’t very many – two or three of them that will need to be replaced, but there were some that were loosened by the impact, and so we’ll have to re-cement them in September when the next brick installation occurs.”
September is typically the time when Rotary places the bricks at the viewpoint.
“Myself, and in the past, Charlie Gatt, have been doing the installations,” said Dees. “It’s usually just the two of us. We’ve been doing that now for several years.”
Dees said the bricks have been popular, with about 2,500 having been placed at the viewpoint so far. He said for the first few years, it was 100 bricks or more each year, and lately, it has been about 40 or 50 bricks.
“We’re starting to run out of space,” said Dees. “For the last five years or so I’ve been looking for other options for how to place bricks in other locations around the community. We have been coming up dry on a good, central location for people to visit.”
In repairing the damage, the city is taking care of the aluminum railings, said Dees. He said the city workers at the viewpoint on the day of the accident were fantastic.
“I found out about the accident around 5:30 pm and I raced down right away to make sure none of the bricks were lost, broken or damaged,” said Dees. “The two city workers had actually taken pictures of where the bricks were so we would know where to put them back. They also placed them in their truck to make sure nobody would steal them.
“They were going to take them back to the city works yard until I showed up, and they were going to store them for us. I’m really appreciative of how diligent and wonderful those city workers were.”
Dees said to order memorial bricks, people can enter “Powell River Rotary clubrunner” into their internet search engine and it will take them to the Rotary homepage. Along the top of the page is a tag called Westview viewpoint bricks, which can be clicked on, taking the person to the application form. Deadline for purchasing a brick is April 30.
Dees said the club aims to install the bricks in September of each year. It’s weather dependent and also depends on when he and other helpers can get to it.
Dees said he spends hours every year helping people to design the bricks they want.
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