"All I could see was devastation"

Details

Published on Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Photo courtesy of Blair Ferguson

By Eoin Devereux

The Neepawa Press/Neepawa Banner

Blair Ferguson could see the flames and smoke in the distance, when his hotel in Fort McMurray, Alberta was temporarily evacuated on Sunday, May 1. He, along with everyone else, kept a close eye on the path of the fire and the prevailing wind, still optimistic that the worst of it would miss the city. But by Tuesday, May 3, that optimism gave way to the grim reality of just how serious the situation was about to get for him and the community of nearly 80,000 people

Ferguson, a Neepawa resident, has worked in the Fort McMurray region for a decade and in that time, it has become his second home. Being so familiar with the area and its people, Ferguson said very early on, you could sense the tension blanketing the city as everyone waited to see how the situation would play out 

“Where I stay, it’s a suburban area called Gregoire, [located in the southeast portion of the city]. We were evacuated from the area the first time on the Sunday night [May 1], because the fire was about 1.5 kilometres southeast of town. We were only evacuated for maybe four hours, and everyone was worried about which way the fire would go. If the wind shifted, it could have been an issue,” said Ferguson. “Then on Monday [May 2], everything was normal. The talk around town at that time was that they were all relieved that it seemed to be moving away. But then, the temperature went up, the humidity dropped and the wind changed and on the Monday night, the fire had gone from 850 hectares to, I believe, 8,500 hectares. So, as soon as that wind changed on Tuesday and the size of the fire was that much bigger, that sense of relief just disappeared and everyone began to fear the worst.”

Photo by Eoin Devereux

The evacuation order arrives

Over the next few days, Ferguson would watch the situation unfold from just outside the fire range, about 20 kilometres north of the city. From that vantage point however, he was still close enough to be affected by the uncertainty.

“I went into work on Tuesday morning. The company I work for, we’re a contractor on a Suncor Energy site, I got into work there that morning and it was just after dinner that the call came in for the mass evacuation and everybody needed to get out. So our nightshift guys, there’s only two of them, managed to get into work. Come up north of town, like everyone else was south of the (Athabasca) river, so they had to evacuate the other way. So it was only the two guys who came into work on the Tuesday night. So, basically, we worked the day shift, the night shift and the following day shift, just to allow Suncor to finish what they were doing, so we could finish up what we had to do for them. And then, as soon as we were done, they took us over to their camp across from the site there and they kept us there the Wednesday night and the Thursday night. A couple of the guys that I’d worked with had flown out or gone north to try and catch the flights out. But I stayed, because I had my vehicle there in town and if there was any way possible, I wanted to check on my vehicle. See if it [was still operational] and then use it to get home. Basically, I was just waiting for [Highway 63] to open up.”

Over the next 24 hours, Ferguson found himself waiting to get the go-ahead to travel back towards the city. Once he received the okay, though, it was still a difficult trek.

“I think it was around four o’clock [on Friday morning] when I heard a knock at the door. They said, ‘The camp is being evacuated. If you are not essential services, helping with the maintenance or firefighters, we’re moving everyone out of here. So there was going be a convoy going through town this morning. So, if you have a vehicle and you want to get into the convoy, fine. Or, we’ll have buses here to take you north.’ Now I had no intention of leaving Fort McMurray without my truck. If it was still there and in one piece, I wanted my truck. So, I got into the convoy and I’m sitting there, waiting in the line. It was a case of sitting for 20 minutes, because it was just a case that they were only taking a few vehicles at a time. You’d sit for 20 minutes and then move maybe 100 feet, then sit there in the same spot for another 20 minutes. So I sat in the convoy for maybe two hours before I got up close to the front.”

Photo used with permission from Fort McMurray Fire Pictures Fackbook Group

While waiting in the convoy, a news report over the radio indicated that RCMP would under no circumstances at all, allow anyone to leave the convoy to go check on anything. It suggested that there was going to be a police car in the front of the convoy, one in the middle and one behind and a helicopter overhead watching the highway. If anyone attempted to leave the convoy, they would be arrested. That left Ferguson with a difficult decision to make. What followed was a very interesting turn of events, that Ferguson will not soon forget.

“So I’m sitting there thinking ‘Oh [expletive]’, because here is my truck, it’s just 200 feet off the main highway. What am I supposed to do? So, I wait until I got up close to where the RCMP had the road blocked. I parked the company van, got out and walked across the highway to talk to them. I talked to the corporal, who was in charge of the situation. I told him who I was and the circumstances of where my vehicle was. So the next thing I know, there are two vehicles sitting there. The officer said to me ‘Get in-between them. Follow the one guy and the other will follow behind you.’ That was great. Thank you very much. As I’m walking back to the company vehicle to go into that section of town and I see the one cruiser just take off, full speed. Didn’t even wait for me to get into the truck [with a chuckle]. So I rush in, start driving, trying to catch up to him. I’m doing 130, 140 km an hour trying to catch him. I’m chasing a cop car, another cop car is chasing me. It must have been quite a sight for anyone watching that. So, the other officer behind me follows all the way to the hotel that I was staying in. As I pulled up to the hotel, I’m thinking to myself, ‘How am I going to do this?’ because my keys were actually still in my hotel room. I’d forgotten to mention that point to them. [with a chuckle] So, I showed the officer where my truck was. He said, ‘Alright, get your keys and get out of here.’ I said ‘Okay, I just have to get into the hotel room to get them.’ He said, ‘Oh…okay. How are you going to accomplish that?’ I told him I had a key for the back door. Like, my room key works for the back door. So I tried that and the back door opened. So I went in and tried my room key and it wouldn’t work. So, [the officer] said to me, ‘I guess you’ll have to head back north.’ I said ‘There is one other option.’ He said ‘What’s that?’ I told him that I’d been after the maintenance guys for a couple weeks to fix the screen in my window, cause it was partway dislodged. I said, ‘If you will follow me around, I’m on the ground floor. And you can watch me attempt to get through the window and get my keys and all’s good. He just started laughing. Then he just said, ‘Alright, let’s go [around to the window].’ So he looks at the window first and looks over at me. The window at the hotel was only like 18 inches wide by five inches deep. It’s just a small sliding window. He looks at me and I’m like 6’2” and 230 pounds. He looks at me, looks at the window, looks at me, looks at the window. He says, ‘You really think you’re going to get in there?’ And I said to him, ‘Do you see this look of determination on my face? This look says that I can see my keys and I know my truck is good. I will get in this window.’ 

So, he stood there and watched me squirm in. I think it was just a case at that point for him of ‘This I gotta see.’ It took some wiggling, but I managed to get in there. He gave 20 minutes to pack up all my belongings and pack up my truck and follow me out of town. So I would like to give a big thank you to him and to the corporal as well. They didn’t need to help me with any of that. They went above and beyond when it came to me. But I’m sure, after the week they had, the story of me crawling through that window probably gave him something to chuckle about with his fellow officers, after it was all said and done,” Ferguson said with a chuckle.

As Ferguson drove his own vehicle away from the hotel and out of Fort McMurray, he noted that the scene was quite eerie.

“All this happened after the city was evacuated, so the streets were empty. Basically, it was a ghost town. But at the same time, you could only see three or four car lengths in front of you, because the smoke right through town was just so thick. You couldn’t make out anything. It looked like a war zone but still strangely quiet,” said Ferguson. “As I drove away, I honestly didn’t know if I would ever see the city again, or even if there would even be any city left. In the suburbs, you just couldn’t see, because it was a cloud of smoke covering everything. The part of the city where I was at, in Gregoire, was pretty much intact at that time. But just across the highway, that section was just gone. So, I don’t know what to expect whenever I go back.  All I could see was devastation, where I was.”

Photo used with permission from Fort McMurray Fire Pictures Fackbook Group

"I want to be there. I want to help."

Reflecting on the disaster, Ferguson praised the front line responders, who worked so tirelessly to ensure  that the impact of the fire on Fort McMurray was not much worse, “The job that the first responders, the firefighters and the police have done. Trying to make sure anyone got out of there safely, which is miracle in itself, because Fort McMurray has one highway coming in and one highway going out. And you have 70,000 people trying to flee the city on one highway. It could have been much worse than it was.”

Ferguson noted that even though it may be several months before he’s called back to work, he’d still like to return to Fort McMurray as soon as possible to assist in any way with bringing some sense of normalcy back to the city.

“I’ve been told by the company that I work for that we probably won’t be back to work for another four months. So, I just want to get out there. I have friends who have lost everything. Co-workers who have lost everything,” said Ferguson. “I’m hoping to get back there as part of the clean up effort or whatever. First opportunity, if I can, I want to be there. I want to help.”