If anyone wondered if living in 24 Sussex Drive has softened up Laureen Harper, they should have seen her go Wednesday.

The prime minister’s wife — along with a whole bunch of Calgary MPs, friends and assistants — cleaned out literally tonnes of garbage from flood-damaged Calgary-area homes, helped deliver tonnes of food at the Morley reserve and then — after putting in a solid eight hours of work and travel, continued on to Exshaw, where she helped clean out a couple more damaged homes.

In other words, this was no political photo op. This was hard, hard work.

The day started down in the Mission neighbourhood at 24th Avenue and 1st Street S.W. right near the old Holy Cross hospital. An entire driveway was piled high with rubble — including mud-soaked drywall, plywood, carpeting and the like.

Harper, who just turned 50 on Sunday, stepped right to the head of the pile and started hauling heavy, dangerous items full of rusty nails into the backs of waiting garbage trucks.

“It’s amazing what you can do with a long line of people who are willing to get a little dirty,” said Harper as the crew — which included Calgary MPs Rob Anders, Deepak Obhrai and Joan Crockatt, PMO staffer Veronica Gerson, Edmonton MP Rona Ambrose and her partner, former rodeo bull rider J.P. Veitch, and Harper’s friend and neighbour from the northwest neighbourhood of Tuscany, Kelli Taylor — made short work of that pile and moved onto another amid the din of rumbling generators.

Even City of Calgary sanitation worker Keith Field, who was operating the crushing mechanism of the garbage truck, was impressed.

“They’re good workers, that’s for sure,” said Field, adding that each truck holds 10,500 kilos of trash.

In no time that truck was full.

Calgary Centre MP Crockatt — who can’t weigh more than 105 pounds covered in mud — helped a resident carry an old washing machine to the roadside and then helped him carry the dryer. The curbsides looked like appliance graveyards. And that was some of the easy stuff to clear. Much of the debris had protruding nails and jagged edges. Forming an assembly line, the work crew, led by Harper, moved from property to property unannounced and just started helping out.

“Isn’t that the prime minister’s wife?” asked Rick Lauzon, 48, as he took a break from shovelling the basement apartment he owns by the river.

“It’s pretty incredible that she’s here, and look at her work,” he marvelled. “Actually, I can’t believe the volunteers. Every day, complete strangers have helped us out.”

People like Neveen Aboushaaban, 33, who lives in untouched Garrison Green.

“I just have to do something to help these people who have lost so much,” says the self-employed real-estate investor. After not finding any rubber boots and work gloves in Calgary, she drove to Red Deer, bought boxes of both and gave many of them to Calgary Ward 8 Alderman John Mar, and kept a few more to distribute to friends who wanted to help.

After filling another garbage truck, the troop moved on to 4th Street and 30th Avenue.