Thoughts and Wishes Please?

[TawnyMyst]

So my adoptive province is currently burning down. We have now had a state of emergency declared for the northern part of the province and Fort McMurray is under a mandatory evacuation order. There are other areas where fires are burning and are being evacuated as well, closest to me is about an hour away. I have offered up my home to evacuees and have go bags packed for myself and the cats just in case. Asking for thoughts and best wishes to those caught in the mess. A fellow guider suggested on a support group that everyone sing Johnny Appleseed once a day, since every time that grace is sung at camp we get rain and that is something this province desperately needs right now.

[MoonCat]

Praying that you all stay safe and they get those fires put out! Saw it on TV...looks terrifying. Be safe!

[wolfie]

Were there any people who refused to leave despite the mandatory evacuation order?

When there were floods near Calgary 3 years ago, the police did some questionable things (being deliberately vague) in the evacuated areas, resulting in a lot of people saying that in a future evacuation, they wouldn't leave.

[pudddykat]

You have my thoughts, wishes, and prayers. Been there done that in Southern CA.

[lvsssycat]

Sending positive thoughts your way from Colorado.

[Jetfire]

So far, from what I'm reading from the stories, everyone seems to be obeying the Fire evacuation order. Almost 90,000 people leaving on two highways; a southbound highway 5 hours away from Edmonton, and a northbound highway that only leads to a small town and some Oil company work camps. 20,000+ people had to take the northern route because the southern one was cut off by fire.

This I think is one of the most scary videos of the evacuation so far. About 1:30 into this video, you can see the inferno they are dealing with. The video was taken around 3PM in the afternoon.

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I AGREE

There are 6 videos from that time; 3 from his front Dashcam and 3 from his rear-facing camera. Scary as hell to watch; I don't even want to imagine what it is like to drive through it. (Or to direct traffic in that mess, like those heroic cops doing it without masks and right next to a gas station on the same corner as the infernos, as you see at the end of Video 3/start of Video 5)

And the fires are no where near contained yet.

To everyone affected by those fires, please stay calm and stay safe. The important thing is to get out with your lives. Things can always be replaced; life cannot.

[TawnyMyst]

Yeah, for the most part everyone has evacuated at this point except for essential workers and emergency crews. Evacuation went as well as it could be and I'm so proud of the people in this province! People that don't have much thanks to the oil and gas industry being hit so hard by the downturn have been giving everything they have. Homes have been opened up to complete strangers for who knows how long. Everyone has dropped pretty much everything to help.

I have a family with their cats now staying with me at my house and have been joining the fuel/gas/water convoys with my truck after work the last few days. Usually have time to make one run up to wandering river with a load in my truck bed and a trailer and back home for a couple hours sleep before back to work. Don't think I'll need to make the run tonight, sounds like they have all they need as far as supplies and everyone has made it out safely and to their final destination. Most of the ones forced to flee to the north have now been airlifted out to edmonton and Calgary with the rest expected to be flown out today.

The Red Cross is coordinating relief efforts and the province and federal government have pledged to match the donations made to it. The radio stations in Edmonton had mounted a massive food donation drive to help the food bank feed the evacuees. 4 tractor trailers have been filled up already.

[lordlundar]

Were there any people who refused to leave despite the mandatory evacuation order?

There were some holdouts but they've been evacuated out.

To put this into perspective, this is a proper firestorm, not just a basic wildfire and at least a third of the city is ashes at this point. To make matters worse there are two access points to the city and the fire came from one of them.

It is a very bad situation made worse by issues that I won't go into because it's fratching turf.