A quick errand at Walmart turned into an overnight adventure for dozens of shoppers in southern Ontario when whiteout conditions kept them from leaving the store and employees pumped up air mattresses and prepared a buffet of delicate food for unexpected guests.
“Cars were in the ditches. Some of them were broken down in the middle of the road. No one could get through,” Heather Nickoli said of conditions in Chatham-Kent, Ont., Friday afternoon.
Nickoli and her boyfriend had been en route from Ohio to Peterborough, Ont., to spend Christmas with her boyfriend’s family when worsening weather forced the closure of Highway 401.
The couple booked a room in Chatham-Kent and decided to stop at Walmart along the way, but they didn’t get far after shopping.
The police turned them back, telling them they wouldn’t even make it to their hotel and would have to spend the night at Walmart.
“We walked into Walmart and there were probably 100 people with nowhere to go. They were locals who couldn’t get back to their homes,” Nickoli said.
Randy Morton and his wife, meanwhile, lived just a mile away and ventured to Walmart because they had run out of cat food. Cans in hand, they too left the store only to be turned back.
“I told the officer I just have to get to the next corner and I’m home. He said, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Turn around and go back to Walmart.”
Walmart said in a statement that there were approximately 50 customers who spent the night in the store, including some young children, and that staff pulled games from the shelves to keep people entertained.
Meanwhile, the store’s deli team served a hot dinner and games were pulled from the shelves to keep customers and their children calm and entertained.
The statement noted that there was even an impromptu birthday celebration for an employee at midnight, complete with cake and candles.
“Our customers were fabulous sports – they started singing carols to keep their spirits up!” said the statement.
Another Walmart in Fort Erie, Ont., also hosted a family that was stranded Friday night, the statement said.
They were all able to leave on Saturday morning. Nickoli and her boyfriend abandoned their trip to Peterborough and returned to Ohio, while Morton and his wife went home.
“I think when we got there, everybody was in shock and a little upset. But they just said, ‘It is what it is,'” Nickoli said of the experience.
“My faith in humanity was restored by the associates who work at the Chatham Walmart,” Morton noted.
—By Rob Drinkwater in Edmonton