James Power doesn’t have a final tally yet on how much post tropical storm Fiona cost Raspberry Point Oysters Ltd., but the damages are likely to be in the hundreds of thousands.
The manager of the Prince Edward Island aquaculture business told SaltWire today they figure they’ve lost about $150,000 worth of ropes and gear, and that’s not counting how much they may lose in marketable oysters.
With the wind and the storm surge, said Power, about 10 or 15 percent of the company’s 30,000 cages were dislodged, torn away from anchors that are screw-bolted to the ocean floor.
“We had about 30 lines break and each line would have had 30 to 50 oyster cages attached to it.”
About 3,000 cages became tangled in the water, he said, as ropes broke away from the bottom anchors and were tossed around in heavy seas.
Peter Warris of the PEI Shellfish Association told SaltWire on Monday it’s been hard to get a handle on the aftermath because power is still out in a lot of places and communications systems — landlines and cell phones — are unstable.
He said he has heard that some farms had significant losses, but it seems the eastern end of the island saw the most severe impacts.
It will take weeks to months, he added, before the full impact of Fiona on this province’s shellfish industry is known.