LONG ROAD TO RECOVERY
LAC-MÉGANTIC — Just outside the metal fence that cordons off that vast swath of this old railway town’s ravaged downtown core that everyone now calls the Red Zone, there stands a row of tall oaks with seared trunks, woebegone branches and stunted leaves.
A year after the derailment and explosion that claimed 47 lives, those wounded trees are as apt a metaphor as any for this community and its 6,000 resilient but traumatized survivors.
After months of discussion, ideas are popping up on how to “reinvent the town,” rebuilding the central core and shifting its reason away from the railroad. Formal proposals were unveiled at a public meeting in mid-June, with council expected to put forward its recommendations in early fall.
In the meantime, a row of shops has opened in a sleek, boxy mall near the sprawling athletic complex. Set back from the waterfront, the new stores are within view of the accident scene, the train yard and the old main street now undergoing major road and sewer repairs.
Although city hall was not damaged by the fire, it lies inside the area that remains off-limits to all but authorized personnel. So the sports centre now serves as a makeshift hub of activity with town services, a temporary courthouse and a popular chicken joint.
The Médiathèque Nelly Arcan, a lightdrenched library and archive, was already planned before the old library was destroyed in the fire that devoured the town centre. Enhanced by generous gifts of books and money, and complete with a special children’s section and computer room, it opened in May.
A life-size statue of Jesus Christ, scorched by fire and slathered with oil during the July 6 catastrophe, has been repaired and re-painted, ready to return to a place of honour on the lawn of Ste-Agnès Church.
And construction is well underway on the new Musi-Café, replacing the popular venue where so many people died on that steamy night last July. For owner Yannick Gagné, who lost 31 employees and customers in the fire, reopening the bar is a potent and much-needed symbol of hope and renewal.
“The mood in Lac-Mégantic is very heavy,” said Gagné. “That is why it is important to have good news of people trying to rebuild the town. It’s small steps.”
Yet even as Lac-Mégantic inches warily toward a new normal, the town’s wounds are deep, its scars raw. The adrenalin that fuelled early recovery efforts has given way to sorrow tinged with rage. For too many people, peace and recovery remain elusive.
Some are hesitant to discuss the tragedy, yet the reminders are everywhere, even more so as the first anniversary of the disaster approaches.
Everyone you talk to knows someone who has moved away, unable to bear the weight of memory. At least one firefighter on duty that night has since taken his own life. Many others have not returned to duty. Posters on a bulletin board at the arena offer counselling tips and phone numbers for those struggling to put shattered lives back together. Régent Charland was vacationing in Charlevoix the night the unmanned Montreal, Maine & Atlantic train hauling 72 DOT-111 wagons of Bakken shale oil roared through the heart of Lac-Mégantic.
“The morning of the 6th, I received a phone call from my son André, the policeman,” said Charland, 60, himself a retired Sûreté du Québec sergeant-detective. “He said, ‘Papa, there has been a catastrophe.’ ... I could hear the noise in the background. He was there, the fire was still burning. He said the train had exploded, that there were many people dead. He said, ‘We need you.’ ”
Charland’s other son, Pierre, is a volunteer firefighter. The couple cut their holiday short, and Charland’s wife went back to her job at Lac-Mégantic’s chronic-care facility while he looked after their four grandchildren. “I would take the little ones to the church, which they thought was like a big castle.” The children scrawled messages on the cut-out hearts in the church that were a tribute to the dead, “and they were happy.”
At night, Charland would go see his sons as they came off double shifts at the accident scene.
“I’d say, ‘Talk, talk talk.’ After 35 years as a police officer, I knew.