This week has been tough (I'm writing this post on May 2, 2020). It brought back lots of heartbreaking memories.
This weekend is the anniversary of the 2016 wildfire that devastated Fort McMurray, destroying entire neighborhoods, and forcing the evacuation of more than 80,000 people in just a few hours. The fire was so intense, it created its own weather system, producing fierce winds and smoke clouds that generated lightning. It cost the life of one person, a young woman who died in a traffic accident as she drove out of town through a curtain of fire. Though the death toll could have been way higher, her death was still one too many.
I flew out on the last plane of the evening before the full evacuation was ordered. It was a fluke as my granddaughter was sick and my daughter needed help. I didn't know I was on the last plane or that the airport would close its commercial flights after we departed.
From the air, I could see the wild fire and the raging flames burning the forest. The fire was later nicknamed The Beast. It looked like a giant open mouth ready to engulf the entire town. At that moment, I was certain I would never come back home. The firefighters had to bulldozer rows of houses in order to create a firebreak. In the end, the fire surrounded the town and many neighborhoods were lost, but they saved the hospital (in blue where the arrow points in flood picture), the water treatment plant, and the other essential buildings, and the town survived. The air quality, which usually runs on a scale of 1 to 10, as 10 being extremely dangerous for your health, was above 40.
The fire started on May 1, 2016, burned out of control until July 5, 2016, and was fully extinguished more than a year later on August 2, 2017. It destroyed 1,456,810 acres of land (roughly 5 times the size of Los Angeles). It took years to rebuild, but we can still see vacant lots where homeowners or businesses just left town without rebuilding. The Covid-19 pandemic was just another bump into our recovery. Many stores closed, but essential services were still open, and there was no shortage of anything (except toilet paper for the first week...which I still don't understand.). People were awesome at social distance and we had less than twenty cases in the last two months. Then this week happened...
The river broke when it was still cold outside and it created an ice jam of 25 km (15 miles).
On the fourth anniversary of the wildfire of the century, and during the pandemic of the century, we're in the middle of the flood of the century.
The river didn't just overflow, it flowed backward, which was something the elders had never seen, submerging neighborhoods that had never seen any flood water since their creation a century ago. Some of the neighborhoods under water were the same ones that were destroyed by the fire. Some people lost their houses again, houses they'd just finished rebuilding, More than 13,000 people had to be evacuated and re-lodged wherever they could in town. Social distancing went down the river. Water turned brownish and we're under a boiling water advisory that won't be lifted until September 2020. And most of the stores that were still open went under water.
Amid all this, my family is among the lucky ones. My home survived the fire and the flood, and my husband didn't lose his job. The ice jam broke yesterday and the water receded. Again we lost one person, one too many. Today the destruction will be assessed and the cleaning will start. As a community, we will survive, but it will be another big scar over the huge one that had just barely begun to heal.
It's scary how destructive nature can be, but it's also amazing how resilient people can be, and how such tragedies can bring out the best in all of us.
Stay safe. Many hugs!
JS
This weekend is the anniversary of the 2016 wildfire that devastated Fort McMurray, destroying entire neighborhoods, and forcing the evacuation of more than 80,000 people in just a few hours. The fire was so intense, it created its own weather system, producing fierce winds and smoke clouds that generated lightning. It cost the life of one person, a young woman who died in a traffic accident as she drove out of town through a curtain of fire. Though the death toll could have been way higher, her death was still one too many.
I flew out on the last plane of the evening before the full evacuation was ordered. It was a fluke as my granddaughter was sick and my daughter needed help. I didn't know I was on the last plane or that the airport would close its commercial flights after we departed.
From the air, I could see the wild fire and the raging flames burning the forest. The fire was later nicknamed The Beast. It looked like a giant open mouth ready to engulf the entire town. At that moment, I was certain I would never come back home. The firefighters had to bulldozer rows of houses in order to create a firebreak. In the end, the fire surrounded the town and many neighborhoods were lost, but they saved the hospital (in blue where the arrow points in flood picture), the water treatment plant, and the other essential buildings, and the town survived. The air quality, which usually runs on a scale of 1 to 10, as 10 being extremely dangerous for your health, was above 40.
The fire started on May 1, 2016, burned out of control until July 5, 2016, and was fully extinguished more than a year later on August 2, 2017. It destroyed 1,456,810 acres of land (roughly 5 times the size of Los Angeles). It took years to rebuild, but we can still see vacant lots where homeowners or businesses just left town without rebuilding. The Covid-19 pandemic was just another bump into our recovery. Many stores closed, but essential services were still open, and there was no shortage of anything (except toilet paper for the first week...which I still don't understand.). People were awesome at social distance and we had less than twenty cases in the last two months. Then this week happened...
The river broke when it was still cold outside and it created an ice jam of 25 km (15 miles).
On the fourth anniversary of the wildfire of the century, and during the pandemic of the century, we're in the middle of the flood of the century.
The river didn't just overflow, it flowed backward, which was something the elders had never seen, submerging neighborhoods that had never seen any flood water since their creation a century ago. Some of the neighborhoods under water were the same ones that were destroyed by the fire. Some people lost their houses again, houses they'd just finished rebuilding, More than 13,000 people had to be evacuated and re-lodged wherever they could in town. Social distancing went down the river. Water turned brownish and we're under a boiling water advisory that won't be lifted until September 2020. And most of the stores that were still open went under water.
Amid all this, my family is among the lucky ones. My home survived the fire and the flood, and my husband didn't lose his job. The ice jam broke yesterday and the water receded. Again we lost one person, one too many. Today the destruction will be assessed and the cleaning will start. As a community, we will survive, but it will be another big scar over the huge one that had just barely begun to heal.
It's scary how destructive nature can be, but it's also amazing how resilient people can be, and how such tragedies can bring out the best in all of us.
Stay safe. Many hugs!
JS
