How Coventry Got Its Generator (Part 3 of 6)
'I witnessed God, basically. Or a higher power. I had given up.'
Part 1: The Government Went Insane
Karl is certain the trucker supply depot (in the parking lot of Ottawa’s baseball stadium) was under constant police surveillance, that video cameras were recording them 24/7 through windows on the nearby hotel’s fifth and sixth floors. He shrugs. That’s just how it was.
“When we started building Coventry, my truck ran for five days straight,” he remembers. “It was a warming station, a charging station. Get in there, warm up, get back out.”
At first, they used smaller generators. “We had 5,000 and 7,000-kilowatt generators, and the fuses kept popping,” says Karl. “It was annoying. All of a sudden, the lights go out.”
He says he spent days calling equipment rental places. “I called all the way up to Quebec City, all the way down to Windsor. Searching, searching. I wasn't saying I was the Convoy. I was just some regular dude who needed an 85-kilowatt generator. But everything was gone.”
Then, he says, “I witnessed God, basically. Or a higher power. I had given up. And the next thing you know, I get a tap on the shoulder. ‘Do you know anybody who needs a generator?’”
Karl asked the stranger what size. “85-kilowatt, diesel.” Two hours later, the man – an Ontario resident who refinishes concrete floors for a living - delivered the prize. “And that night we had a nice generator,” says Karl. “It was quiet, we didn't have all these little rattle boxes.” Which also improved the lives of the police officers staying in the adjacent hotel, he points out.
During the earliest days, “two boys from out west” dropped off a cube truck and a refrigerated trailer. “Then another two reefers came in. We parked them right beside the tents. So we had a freezer and two fridges to keep things thawed.” The cube truck was used to store “toilet paper, tooth brushes, shovels, anything. We had a whole Walmart. We could have stayed there for months.”
After a chap who sells outdoor cedar-lined saunas delivered three of them to Coventry, they served as warming stations. A slew of plastic outdoor toilets were delivered, along with massive trash bins. Eventually, there was a blue trailer of heated washrooms, “It had three stalls aside, women and men.”
Coventry eventually became a full service supply depot. “We were sending food, tents, barbecues, generators, extension cords,” into downtown Ottawa, says Karl. “We were fueling trucks, cars, everything.”
He insists they were consistently friendly toward every flavour of official. “We were welcoming the cops constantly. We were 100% legit the whole time. When the fire department showed up and had a problem with us burning wood to keep warm outside – just two, three little fires, in cages,” he says the protesters could have contested the matter, been issued a ticket, and fought it out later in court. Instead, “I'm like, OK, we won’t have fires, that’s fine. At that point we were getting heat. I had two old, military surplus furnaces from a farmer.”
On another occasion, the authorities tried to raise bogus environmental concerns. “Every Jerry can is 20 liters,” explains Karl. “If one breaks, it’s not going to be a massive spill.” All the required environmental cleanup supplies were onsite, he stresses. “For the propane, we ended up using one of the roll-off garbage dumpsters. Four steel walls and a steel floor. It was a safety thing, in case it ever caught fire.” Propane, he continues, is “way more flammable than diesel. We put all the propane tanks in it, then we chained it and locked it.” Like they do at service stations.
Nevertheless, nine days in, Coventry was raided by the police.
next installment: Police Raid on Coventry
I would say I am not a person of faith, but stories like the generator showing up sure do fascinate me! I am forwarding this to a good friend who has a strong faith, and I know he will enjoy it because he has similar stories of prayers being answered!