THE VOICES OF FORT MCMURRAY
As the only daily news publication in Fort McMurray, the Fort McMurray Today wouldn’t let the evacuation of our entire municipality slow our news process. Since leaving our office and city on May 3, we haven’t missed a day of printing. We uploaded more multimedia stories to our website and social media pages than at any other time since the inception of the Today. Though our city may be empty, our people, scattered across the province and country, deserve to know we have not left them. With the help of our generous hosts at the Edmonton Journal, Sun and Examiner offices, we have been able to carry on with our jobs and bring some sense of normalcy back to our daily life. As we go along, we will be there with our neighbours through the re-entry, re-build and re-start of the lives we once knew. Olivia Condon, Vincent McDermott, Robert Murray, Cullen Bird, Stephanie Jellett and Kyle Darbyson
OLIVIA CONDON
Though there is fear, trauma, tears and chaos in my escape story, that’s not what I’m here to tell you about.
I’m here to talk about the family I’ve made through this disaster. No, I am not a mother, but I am the leader of a small group of extraordinary people — people who understood the gravity and implications of evacuating an entire city. Our city. But more than that, people who understood that our jobs, our influence, our role could not stop just because we had to leave the community we serve.
The sacrifice that the young men I call my co-workers, my friends and now my family endured to keep our publication going, never missing a print date, still astounds me.
It was an unspoken agreement between the four of us to carry on. I’m not kidding, it was literally unspoken. With so little time to make critical decisions during the hectic evacuation process, we never had the opportunity to discuss our coverage plan. But the quick thinking they each demonstrated — whether it was Cullen and Vince troubleshooting an app they’ve never used to live broadcast video without Internet while driving, or Robert braving the traffic to get timelapse footage of the fire’s growth that would eventually garner more than one million unique views on Facebook — shows their commitment not only to their careers and the newspaper that employs them, but to their team and to one another.
From the bottom of my heart, I thank them.
ROBERT MURRAY
Running late to the now daily 11 a.m. news conference, I got the sense that the fire was out of control, but not a danger.
Hours later, that quickly changed.
As I filed interviews, photos and video, it dawned on me that I wouldn’t be writing any of the three sports stories I had planned for that day.
As I weaved through traffic, it became clear we would have to soon abandon our office.
Seeing trees on fire in the distance, it hit home.
As the editorial staff fled, I decided to stay behind and finish uploading video so our offices in Edmonton would have something.
One per cent … two per cent … three per cent. Against my better judgment, I pulled the plug on the transfer, knowing I would send it later and took off in my car.
Looking back on the video of my escape now, I can hardly believe it was real.
As much as I knew the town was fleeing in a state of panic, it didn’t truly hit me until I was driving southbound on the northbound lanes of Highway 63, ushered into those lanes by a police officer, passing abandoned trucks, cars and a transit bus through a thick cloud of murky smoke.
After I managed to connect with other Today staff that evening, I was still in the lull of reporting and not caring about making it out of Fort McMurray with just the clothes on my back.
Armed with my cameras, a bag of chips and the story of a lifetime, I was ready to take on the next month.
CULLEN BIRD
Twitter was my best friend while we drove out of a city on fire.
I was with my colleague Vince, who told me it was my job to keep reporting through social media as we drove.
The hills beside us were on fire, the flames roaring from blackened trees just 41/2 metres away. And I couldn’t get a single damn video to tweet. Nothing more than a few seconds long would load.
Vince suggested we use Periscope. So I picked up his phone and we both struggled to use the app for the first time in our lives. While I panned the scene around us with the phone’s camera, Vince delivered a full two minutes of breathless reporting.
We ended the broadcast just as the Periscope link was getting hundreds of retweets and people were tuning in to watch.
Realizing the mistake, we restarted, and gave a longer, bythe-minute description. Then we lost the weak signal we needed to maintain the broadcast.
I snapped photos of the Centennial Trailer Park as we passed. It looked like the surface of Mars. Many of the photos I took didn’t make it onto Twitter, but those that did were retweeted hundreds of times.
Our connection with the Inter- net became our most important link with the audiences we were trying to serve.
VINCENT MCDERMOTT
When I was a journalism student, a few of my instructors told me a crisis was a crucible that would show who truly loved journalism.
On the morning of May 3, my friends in Abasand and Beacon Hill still had homes. Fire Chief Darby Allen would urge people to continue living their lives, but remember they were in a “serious situation.”
But as soon as that press conference ended, the fire turned towards us. By noon, smoke could be seen approaching the parking lot of our downtown office. The municipality was evacuating more neighbourhoods as ash began falling like snow.
Our sports reporter, Robert Murray, returned with photos of people fleeing in hastily packed cars. For many, it would be the last time they saw their homes.
Shortly after 3 p.m., the entire city south of us was evacuated.
Naively, we thought we could continue reporting from our homes. Instead, traffic forced us south down Highway 63.
What followed were searing images of chaos — flames near our cars, the destruction of entire neighbourhoods, thousands of panicked residents fleeing bumper to bumper — all captured on our phones and cameras, and scribbled on notepads.
I still describe it as a miracle we found each other so quickly outside a gas station near the Fort McMurray First Nation, where hundreds had stopped for gas or to catch their breaths.
None of us knew if our homes were safe. Our only question was how would we keep reporting. Stopping was not an option.