THE CHILDREN RETURN
Charred trees are visible in the distance as Brandon Gourlay and his daughter, Zylah, take a walk through the Morgan Heights neighbourhood of Fort McMurray. Officials have lifted an air-quality advisory and a warning that children under seven be kept away.
FORT MCMURRAY The kids are back.
Along with restaurants, shops and other businesses, day cares, recreation centres and playgrounds have reopened.
Victoria Adeosun, who operates Amazing Grace Daycare in the basement of her Timberlea home, said Wednesday that a few of her young clients have returned.
One girl was dropped off to spend Tuesday and a little boy was with Adeosun on Wednesday. She said when the boy’s mother came to drop him off in the morning, the woman said her son had missed coming to Adeosun’s house during the evacuation. She was grateful Adeosun had reopened.
“‘We see that this our son’s second home,’ that is how she put it,” Adeosun said proudly.
After returning to Fort McMurray on June 5, Adeosun and her family got to work cleaning. She said they didn’t open the refrigerators or freezer before throwing them out.
She also had a company come in to clean ducts, so that her house would be safe and clean when families started coming back.
On Monday, parents started calling to ask if she was open.
Though only two children have been dropped off so far, Adeosun hopes the rest of her regulars will be back soon.
She has space for two more children. She has been getting phone calls from parents who are away, but who are looking for child care for when they return.
“We have the faith that Fort McMurray is coming back,” Adeosun said.
On Tuesday, Alberta Health Services lifted the air quality advisory for the Fort McMurray area that had been in place since May 2.
The health authority also cancelled the recommendation that children under seven years old not return to the community.
Not all parents were able to wait for the all-clear from AHS.
“Some of us don’t have a choice,” said Brandon Gourlay, who was out for a walk with his seven-and-ahalf-month-old daughter Zyla in his Morgan Heights neighbourhood Tuesday morning.
Gourlay said he and his wife, Kerenza, returned to their home on June 4. The family had been staying with some of Kerenza’s family in Boyle and planned to remain there for a few more weeks. However, Gourlay said after his mother-in-law said the city was safe, they decided to drive up on June 4 and check on the condition of their home.
Besides the gas being turned off, and some bread and bananas that had rotted on the counter, their mobile home was in perfect working order.
The couple has not found it too difficult living with a baby in Fort McMurray without all of the usual amenities, Gourlay said.
Kerenza is on maternity leave so they don’t need to arrange for child care, and Zyla had her six-month checkup in Boyle.
One concern for Gourlay was that though their house was fine, about 15 mobile homes behind their own were destroyed in the fire.
There haven’t been any issues with debris or air quality, but when takes his young daughter out in her stroller, he steers clear of burnt structures and trees.
But otherwise, Gourlay, who works out of the city and was away when the wildfire forced the evacuation, is grateful to be in his own home with his family.
“I had a really rough time of it, being away from them,” Gourlay said.
Alberta has ordered a review into how it responded to the huge wildfire known as “The Beast” that destroyed parts of the Fort McMurray region and forced close to 90,000 people from their homes.
The government says the review will focus on how well the province was prepared for the fire that broke out on May 1 and burned almost 5,900 square kilometres. It will also cover how the government fought the wildfire, which is not yet under control.
“This fire has altered the lives of thousands of people who are now faced with the difficult task of rebuilding their lives,” Agriculture and Forestry Minister Oneil Carlier said Wednesday in a release. “Reviews like this are a normal part of our business when faced with extreme wildfire conditions or an extreme wildfire event.”
The government has issued a request for proposals to find a contractor to conduct the review, which is to be completed by the end of the year.
“The impact to both infrastructure and the economy will be measured in the billions of dollars,” the review document says.
The review is to include an assessment of the weather, which was unseasonably warm, dry and windy, and how much timber and brush surrounded threatened or burned neighbourhoods and oilsands facilities. The review will also look at the behaviour of the fire, which spread quickly.
Carlier said the cause of the wildfire, which is being investigated by RCMP and wildfire officials, will not be part of the review.