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MG 1 vol 2124 number 150

HALIFAX DISASTER RECORD OFFICE
Archibald MacMechan, F.R.S.C.
Director
Halifax, N.S.

PERSONAL NARRATIVE

Frank A. Gillis.
Chairman of the Transportation Committee,

Obtained authority from Governor Grant to commandeer cars all over the city. His action was probably illegal but it was no time for red tape. Mr. Gillis was out all morning in his own car conveying injured people to hospitals. Was not at the morning meeting, did not hear of it till he arrived home. The organization of transport was running two hours after the explosion and was running smoothly by eight o’clock that night. Black and Gillis went about the city asking private owners of cars to lend them and instructing the police to do the same thing. By evening they had between two hundred and fifty and three hundred cars. This was in addition to those commandeered by the military, by Col. Flowers at the Armouries and by Col. Thompson at Headquarters. They were told that there were seven thousand people to move in the North End. Modus operandi—Davidson was in the City Hall, W.A. Major and others were in the north end. Motors were despatched to various districts as needed, e.g., Mumford Rd. The injured would be taken to hospital and the homeless to shelters, as St. Paul’s Hall or St. Mary’s Hall. If first aid or doctors were wanted for bad cases they were sent from the City Hall. Not an hour after the explosion, he began to keep a record of the persons brought in and how they were