Over a month after Fort McMurray residents fled to Bonnyville escaping the wildfire that roared through the city, evacuees have moved out of emergency housing.
“We were housing them in the emergent housing phase and now they've all transitioned either back to Fort McMurray or into the Wildfire Transitional Accommodation Program, which is a three-month program funded by the government,” said Bonnyville fire chief Brian McEvoy.
Over 1,000 evacuees are estimated to have called Bonnyville a safe haven over the course of the evacuation. A total of 979 evacuees registered at the check-in centre set up in the C2, with approximately another 200 to 300 who stay with friends and family, or in campgrounds. As well, the Fort McMurray First Nations rented out the Best Western to house their residents from the reserve.
Just because they've transitioned out of the hotel rooms provided for emergency care, doesn't mean all evacuees have left the community. McEvoy estimates around 150 to 200 Fort McMurray residents have chosen to stay in Bonnyville either because of health problems or to let their children finish up the school year in local schools.
One family still remains in municipal care – a couple and their newborn baby, who just arrived last Thursday.
“There's a lot of people who are in the area who were staying with friends or relatives from the beginning, or who were down in the campers and were self-sufficient,” said McEvoy.
On May 4, a provincial evacuation order was called as a massive wildfire spread through the Fort McMurray area and continued to grow to just under 600,000 hectares. The fire destroyed approximately 2,400 structures, 10 per cent of the city.
Evacuees started to arrive in Bonnyville shortly after the fire broke out, taking up refuge in hotels who offered their rooms for free. While the town immediately banded together, setting up a Red Cross registration centre and hosting donations drives, it wasn't until the week following the provincial evacuation announcement that the town was announced as an official evacuation centre.
Well over 100 volunteers came together to care for evacuees utilizing the centre, or to assist the Bonnyville Baptist Church in their donation efforts. In addition, a number of local residents took it upon themselves to gather money and necessary items for evacuees. Various local businesses also offered up their products and services for free.
“I personally provide a lot of kudos to everyone involved. They all pulled together for the common good,” said Bonnyville Mayor Gene Sobolewski during the June 14 council meeting. “We were the only regional effort in Alberta in this emergency. It was the MD and the town together, and at times Cold Lake.”
MD of Bonnyville Reeve Ed Rondeau added, “People came when they were called. Employers let staff volunteer where needed, some for an extended period of time. The answer was always ‘yes' to even the most complex requests. Everyone came together to make it work.”
Now that all but one family is out of municipal care, a review process is being undergone to look at the procedures in place and how well they worked during the emergency.
Earlier this month, a roundtable was hosted between emergency services management and volunteers to discuss successes and what can be improved.
“One of the challenges is always documentation. We could have done a little better on our documentation and record management. Any kind of event like this that's always one of the things that you find,” explained McEvoy.
He added, “I think the whole process went very well. There's always glitches but you're going to get that in any kind of emergency.”
The local response and evacuation centre is still in the review process, meaning nothing has been officially identified yet. Once the review is completed, the regional emergency management plan will be getting updated.
While it's not something he wishes on any community, McEvoy expressed it's nice to know the training that's being given to local emergency response personnel can be counted on.
“For the past 20 years or so, we've always trained to do this in a local emergency. This was a provincial emergency, so the scope of what happened was beyond what we had planned and trained for...but (our training) was solid enough that we were able to expand what we were doing to meet that provincial scale.”
With Fort McMurray evacuees moved out of municipal care and back into their homes or with the provincial transitional accommodation program, the Bonnyville Baptist Church will also be closing their doors for donations.
On June 22 and 23 the church will be hosting a garage sale to sell off any excess donation items, excluding food. The funds raised from the garage sale will go towards the Samaritans Purse Fort McMurray Relief effort. For more information, contact Ben Smith at 780-812-9329.