FIRST FIRE, NOW FLOODING HITS FORT MCMURRAY

CA LGA RY • Severe flooding on the Athabasca River has submerged much of downtown Fort Mcmurray, the city at the hub of the oilsands, exacerbating economic hardship in a region already reeling from natural and economic disasters.

“Our community has seen devastation on all fronts,” Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo councillor Keith Mcgrath said, referring to the 2016 fire that ripped through Fort Mcmurray and burned over 3,000 of houses and businesses, followed by persistently low oil prices that devastated the region’s economy.

Mcgrath said an ice jam has caused the Athabasca River to flood past levels seen in the 1970s and is damaging businesses and homes that had been rebuilt after the fire.

“People had just come out of the rebuild and now they see their house is flooded, so the mood is pretty sombre,” Mcgrath said. “It’s a travesty.”

Residents in the area say ice on the river began to break amid warmer weather, allowing water to begin flowing on Sunday, an event that community members in Fort Mcmurray and downriver in Fort Mckay gather to watch every year.

But as the ice began flowing down river, it formed a 24- kilometre- long ice jam, which impeded the flow of water downstream and caused water levels to rise.

The municipality issued a series of community updates as the situation worsened Sunday night and Monday morning. Voluntary evacuation notices turned into mandatory orders in a matter of hours and those orders spread to more and more neighbourhoods in Fort McMurray overnight Sunday.

At 1 a.m. on Monday morning, Alberta Health Services directed the municipality to issue a boil-water advisory for parts of the area.

“The Athabasca River is currently breaking and water levels are extremely high,” the municipality said in one mandatory evacuation order. “Residents in floodprone areas should prepare a 72-hour emergency kit and stay alert.”

The order advised residents to check in at the evacuee registration centre and “continue practising physical distancing while evacuating.”

The region is currently dealing with “two states of emergency,” Mcgrath said, referring to the coronavirus pandemic that has kept people in their homes and now the flood, which forced the evacuation of downtown Fort Mcmurray.

Mcgrath said that 2,000 people are currently signed up to stay in the municipality’s emergency evacuation centre.

Nearby oilsands producers Suncor Energy Inc. and Syncrude Canada Ltd. have offered specialized pumps to help remove water out of the municipality’s flooded downtown core.

Mcgrath said he expects additional help from the province and federal government and the municipality, which is the local government for multiple communities in a broader region, is working to open more centres for evacuees and people affected by the flood.

One man, travelling through the city’s downtown in a boat, posted a video on social media Monday morning that showed just the tops of cars and upper halves of trucks sticking out of the water like icebergs as much of downtown is submerged.

“Every time we feel like we’re getting ahead, we get knocked down again,” said Ron Quintal, president of the Fort Mckay Métis Nation, adding that the string of natural and economic disasters is “testing our resolve.”

Mercifully, Quintal said, the deluge that has submerged parts of Fort McMurray isn’t yet affecting communities downstream along the Athabasca River.

“Our ancestors were pretty smart. We’re fortunate they built Fort Mckay on a pretty high hill,” Quintal said.

But the situation in Fort Mcmurray will have a “ripple effect” on communities down the river that rely on stores in Fort Mcmurray for supplies, said Jim Boucher, former longtime chief of the Fort McKay First Nation and a longtime resident of Fort Mckay.

“We’re certainly tied to Fort Mcmurray for our resources,” Boucher said, speaking from his house in Fort Mckay overlooking the Athabasca River. His house, he said, is still about 30 feet above the water.

The last time he can remember the river had flooded to this extent was in the 1970s.

At that time, he said, the flooding lasted roughly a week. He hoped the water subsides in a few days.

Fort Mckay is an Indigenous community in the heart of the oilsands region, with major oilsands mines to the north and south of the town along the river. Suncor, Syncrude and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. all have operations that dot the landscape on either side of the river.

“The flooding in the Fort Mcmurray region has affected certain bus routes, however, there is no impact on operations at this time,” Canadian Natural spokesperson Julie Woo said in an email.

Suncor spokesperson Erin Rees said the firm was monitoring the flooding but has “not experienced any flooding at this point.” She said Suncor was working to enable employees to volunteer with the recovery effort.

The region is a major source of employment and the centre of most of oil output in Canada’s biggest oil-producing province.