THE HOMECOMING
Weeks after a raging wildfire forced them to flee with the clothes on their backs, Fort Mac evacuees return to a changed landscape — and a heroes’ welcome
The ritual grew from people of the Canadian grassroots, a gesture of quiet respect and gratitude. The lining of bridges and overpasses along highways, the stringing of flags and banners, has become the way ordinary Canadians honour fallen soldiers on their hearse-born last journey home.
On Wednesday, the ceremony was reversed. In Fort McMurray, the firefighters and first responders hailed as heroes for saving most of the city and safeguarding its people as they fled a monster wildfire in May parked their rigs and hung banners to welcome the oil town’s gritty residents as they headed back home along Hwy. 63.
As the first residents arrived, passing a huge Canadian flag hung between the ladders of two fire trucks parked on one bridge, the Fort Mac evacuees saw for the first time the devastation.
They saw destroyed areas covered with a white substance sprayed to keep toxic ash from blowing about. On arrival, they found re-entry information booklets in plastic bags hanging from doorknobs, 36-page instruction manuals for cleaning and disposal of belongings and property ruined by fire, smoke and ash.
There were stinking refrigerators to clean, grass grown tall and infested with dandelions, dead batteries to boost in vehicles left behind. So there was work to do.
But there was comfort and consolation, too. “FREE WELCOME HOME HUGS,” said one sign. From South African firefighters who had just arrived to help fight the blaze still burning in the province came the tweet: “Respect for FMM residents. Spirit high ready to fight the beast!”
Fenton Lovell said he cried as he drove in. And his eyes teared up again when he opened his fridge. “Fort McMurray strong!” he joked Wednesday. Lovell was cleaning his house so his wife and twin babies can return from Newfoundland.
Pilar Ramirez spent the night sleeping in the back of a truck about 40 minutes southeast of Fort McMurray. She got to work cleaning as soon as she reached her downtown home.
“Oh, it’s so disgusting!” she said on opening the fridge door. “It smelled terrible, the food. Flies everywhere — and big ones. I said, ‘Oh, my God, what happened here?’ ”
Norm Sutton wasted no time hauling out the lawn mower to get his and his neighbour’s front lawn under control.
“Gotta get back to normal,” he said on Twitter, speaking for multitudes.
People driving into Fort Mac on the only highway into the area found forest on both sides blackened about a half-hour out of town and the strong smell of smoke still hung in the air.
The fire destroyed 2,400 structures — about 10 per cent of the city — when it ripped through last month and forced more than 80,000 residents to flee.
Bob Couture, director of emergency management for the Wood Buffalo municipality, said he expected about 15,000 people to return Wednesday, the first day of what organizers have planned as a staged re-entry.
In contrast to the confusion, haste and fear of the exodus, he expected the homecoming “to be, hopefully, a joyous event.”
Donations to the Red Cross’s For Mac relief agency sit at $112 million, but officials plan to update that figure this week.
Returning residents are being warned that it won’t be business as usual and to bring with them two weeks worth of food, water and prescription medication as crews continue to work to get basic services restored.
Crews worked to get critical businesses such as banks, grocery stores and pharmacies running again. Supplies of some items were expected to be limited in the beginning and the government said some things might need to be rationed.
But “we would not do this if it was not safe to do so,” Couture said. The RCMP planned to monitor homecoming traffic by helicopter and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley was to be in Fort McMurray when evacuees returned.
“It’s not like, ‘OK, you’re home. See ya. Bye-bye,’ ” she said. “We’re still with them, and I think it’s really important that they hear that.”