It’s become clear, in the week since a conflagration sent 88,000 people running in less than a day, that there’s really only one phrase that adequately describes the net result of the Fort McMurray fire. It’s the Miracle of Fort Mac.
It was very much like the Miracle on the Hudson. In 2009 an Airbus A320 lost both engines and successfully ditched on New York’s Hudson River. All 155 lives were saved.
Similarly, the entire population of Fort McMurray, around 88,000, was evacuated in a day - actually, probably less than a day.
The videos of dash cams are more startling than Hollywood disaster movies. Burning embers landed on the hoods and tonneau covers of pickup trucks as vehicles pulled out of residential subdivisions with towering flames on the other side of the street. Mounties, standing in the choking smoke, guided thousands of cars and trucks out of town. Four-lane highways saw contra-traffic – using all four lanes in one direction –to get as many people out as possible, as quickly as possible.
A few days later, there were two unfortunate deaths due to a collision. But up to that point, getting 88,000 people out otherwise without serious injuries or deaths is a true miracle. If this same evacuation had happened in the U.S., I wonder how many people would have been shot by those armed and impatient to get the hell out of, well, hell.
On May 9, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley toured Fort McMurray with the media. It was the first real glimpse for the outside world to see what the outcome has been.
Despite the raging inferno, nearly all of Fort McMurray was saved. The downtown, hospital, water treatment plant, all operating schools - they all made it. Yes, some areas were devastated, but it turned out to be only 10 to 15 per cent of the total community. Given what took place, that’s a remarkably good outcome.
For the economy of Fort McMurray, Alberta and the nation, thankfully all oilsands operations were spared. Oil production right now is down about one million barrels per day, but that will come back quickly. Maybe a month from now, maybe a bit longer, I expect most of those operations will be up and running again. Half-empty camps that had been used for construction workers on new projects will now house operations workers for existing projects, at least until Fort Mac can house them again.
The environment was spared as well. I don’t want to imagine what would have happened if Syncrude’s or Suncor’s principle operations went up in flames.
The local first responders deserve all the credit here. They were the ones that saved much of the city, and evacuated its people. I personally think the Canadian military, with three of its largest bases relatively nearby (CFB Edmonton, CFB Wainwright, CFB Cold Lake) should have been mobilized on May 3 to assist with initial evacuation, providing fuel tankers, helicopters and airlift. (The first draft of this column was harshly critical on that, but I’ll leave that analysis to a later date.) What we did find out was despite having Western Canada’s largest air base as the nearest community of size, you will have to rely on your own municipal workers and first responders in times of immediate crisis.
After my aunt and uncle were forced within minutes to evacuate Salmon Arm, B.C. in 1998 due to forest fire, we prepared our own evacuation checklist. It was pinned to the garage doorframe of our North Battleford house. Now we are revisiting that checklist, and will be pinning a new one to the doorframe shortly. This came into sharp focus when a grass fire just west of Estevan (and blowing this way) occurred a few days after the Fort McMurray evacuation.
Miracles are something to pray for, but planning is something to rely on.
