When Fort McMurray was forced to evacuate due to wildfire in 2016 – an event that became the largest natural disaster in Canadian history – some words of advice provided comfort and guidance for the people who were displaced. Those words were shared online by Mandy Larsson after her experiences as an evacuee the year prior. Here is what she wrote.
Dear evacuees. From my experience during the Slave Lake fires, I have some information. It may not pertain to everything you have gone through, or will go through, but it might help.
Don’t believe everything you read or hear about everything being gone. Don’t believe the media when they post photos and videos of total destruction. As that is unfortunately the case in some areas, it doesn’t mean your home is gone. They were saying all of Slave Lake, Canyon Creek and surrounding areas were completely gone, during the fires; but in reality, 20% of Canyon Creek and Widewater were lost, and several blocks of homes were gone in Slave Lake. Not the entire city, as some people were reporting.
Be prepared to be gone 2 weeks, maybe more, probably not less. The will need to get the burned areas fenced off, gas lines capped, electric wires fixed, and water treatment running, all before they will let people back in. It’s a big city, so this could take some time. It will also be very hot, and there were guns, or bullets I should say, erupting days after the fire stopped. So find a place you are comfortable staying for a while.
When you get home, your fridge and freezers will be garbage. They will probably give you duct tape to tape it closed and put it outside for collection. Hopefully nearby appliance locations are preparing to stock up, for the demand that will come. Don’t open your fridge, unless you have a morbid desire to smell things that are rotten.
Keep every receipt you get from now on. Food, shelter, clothing, toiletries, gas, keep track of kms driven. Your insurance company should cover this, even if you haven’t lost your home. It was a mandatory evacuation, which changes things.
When you get home, take photos of everything. You may need to wash everything fabric in your home (curtains, bedding, clothes in the closet, etc) as they will smell like smoke. Be prepared for that by not coming home late and hoping to sleep. You may not be able to.
If you need help coping with the devastation and fear and loss, seek help. Early.
Good luck to you all. Alberta, and all of Canada is already stepping up to find ways to help! And though it may not seem like it now, your city will flourish again.️
Your furnace and air ducts should be cleaned!
I know that reading this was an immense help for me and my partner and our fellow evacuee cohorts back in 2016.
Now the town of Jasper is evacuated and anticipating returning to confirmed destruction – estimates place the percentage of destroyed buildings at approximately 30%, but with no current concern for further damages to occur. Carrying the gesture forward, Kitty Cochrane has shared her experiences with being an evacuee in 2016. There are obviously some parallels and repeated points, but I wanted to share her message in full.
I’m so sorry for your losses. Very, very difficult. Here are some thoughts that might be helpful at some point……
-this is an emotional process. Give yourself room to cry, get upset, feel overwhelmed, receive support, get counselling, tell the story over and over. It’s intense and will be extremely intense for the whole town for the first year
-definitely say yes to everything that is offered- places to stay, food, clothing, money. It’s humbling and heartening to experience good will.
-it’s very hard not knowing- not knowing what is happening every minute with the fire, not knowing the exact damages, not knowing when you can get back into Jasper, not knowing what’s next and when. Communication comes in bits and pieces, and from all directions and none at times. Limbo is rough.
-it will take 4-5 years for everything to be rebuilt. The first rebuilds were at least 1 year.
-be ready to go through multiple insurance adjusters. If you’re lucky you’ll get a sympathetic and capable one right away. But highly likely you’ll have to repeatedly call them, argue (nicely) with them, negotiate, ask for a new adjuster or just not hear from them for months and get assigned a new one anyway. Keep email copies of all communications.
-insurance adjusters will be assigned very quickly to you. If your place is gone, you can start the process of listing contents right away. There was another excellent post about how to do this. There were complaints of different payouts. Just be honest and persistent.
-people who’ve had their places burned to the ground have it the hardest emotionally. It’s a very tough loss. But people whose structures are “fine” but next to the burn areas will have a lot of damage that needs repairing – window seals that have been heat impacted, roofing tiles and insulation needing replacing. These drag out and need a lot of negotiating with insurance. They may also lose all or many of their interior items from smoke damage. This can have a huge emotional impact. In worst cases you’ll wish it had just burnt down- easier to start over with some structures.
-the kids will be okay if you’re okay. But everyone will carry some trauma. It’s worth understanding trauma as you go through these next months – it’s the knee jerk reaction you’ll have to certain situations. Even just the experience of an emergency evacuation can be traumatic.
-There is an “after” to all this. That’s hard to hear or believe in the middle of loss. But new houses and hotels will be built-a lot of work- but they will look good and will still be Jasper and will make Jasper even better. The scorched trees will be hard to look at for the first few years. But in Ft McMurray now, 8 years later, there is so much green and natural growth – it’s astounding. Nature will get busy right away growing things.
-watch your fatigue. High adrenaline, sleepless nights, trying to gather all the info and navigate lots of info can lead to poor decisions when driving, etc.
-there will be a lot of disaster people coming in from all over the place – adjusters, restoration people, rug cleaners, builders. Hard to know who is reliable.
-if your place wasn’t majorly impacted and insurance will pay for cleaning, you can get them to pay out to you on that and do the cleaning yourself or hire people to clean. It’s all cleanable. You’ll see lots of talk of how toxic the ash is, but ultimately it all just gets cleaned. Put on gloves and wash carefully.
-be careful of your relationships. Don’t let the stress get to you all
-it was surprising how many people didn’t come back after the fire.
-it was a month before we were allowed back into Ft M to see our houses. Evacuation is usually a several week process. The fire usually isn’t instantly over – it takes time to ensure the area is safe. They need time to take care of it, and people just get in the way. They also had to make sure there was infrastructure for returnees: stores with food, functioning electricity, potable water, functioning hospital. If everything ground to a halt and was turned off (eg gas through the town) it can take time to get it functioning again.
-if your electricity was off for an extended period of time in an otherwise fine house, you’ll likely need a new fridge/freezer (rotten meat is revolting). Possibly a new washing machine if you had a load in (mildew). There will be a lot of dumpsters and dead appliances on the sidewalks for awhile.
-the faster you get started the faster it gets done
-you’ll get tired of the word “resilient”
-a sense of humour is gold. There will be some strangely funny things in amongst it all.
-it will be surprising who shows up to help you out. And you might expect certain people to show up for you, who don’t. People show up as they are able. It’s all okay.
-take days off, get away, take a break from the stress, take a break from the news
-there will be times when you’re not okay, and that’s okay too. That might be now and/or might be later. There will be times where it feels like it will never be over. It’s a lengthy process.
-there are a wide range of experiences and reactions. Some people will lose everything, some nothing. Some will want to talk a lot, some will not want to hear anything more about it. It’s worthwhile allowing everyone their experience and responses.
-Ultimately, you will be okay. Everyone will be okay. The artists will make art, the story tellers will write stories, the photographers will gather photos, the cleaners will clean, builders will build, new things will be gathered, new homes created, new memories and mementos made, nature will instantly pop up flowers amongst the char. You will be okay.
Feel free to share.