May 1st 2016 - The beginning of hell, Fort Mcmurray will remember

It was our last nightshift and the highway was blocked going to the mine because of a fire in Timberlea, so they detoured the traffic through Thickwood and Parson's Creek. We started work an hour later and continued with our night like nothing was happening in town - production must continue...



I didn't have a great night because my truck was going crazy with alarms going on when I was driving and parked... As an operator, when your truck is a bad truck, that can ruin your day. Right before our 11 o'clock break, we listened to a general announcement that workers living in Gregoire and Prairie Creek need to contact their geographic supervisors in order to get home and evacuate due to the fire. I must say, I feel very lucky to work with a group of amazing people that support and have each others back because some people were on the radio worrying and answering to people's questions. Next thing you know, somebody said, maybe Beacon hill will be next because it is right next to Gregoire - my heart went straight to my roommate, I got worried, she was drunk when I left her so I hope nothing hit our neighborhood and that she is save.

May 2nd

My truck started to beep at me at the shovel face and I tried to pull away from it to put the truck down in a safe place away from traffic and I called it in at 7:40am. Getting off of my truck was terrible, the smell of the fire was in our mine and I could not breathe and kept coughing. I had a bad feeling about this fire and felt that I needed to change my flight ASAP in order to not get stuck in Fort McMurray and miss my Israel's flight...

As usual, went for breakfast with my good friend and colleague and were talking about life and all, I go home and start packing my bags and was on the phone with Air Canada to try to get out of town, the lady could not really get me on a direct flight so I decided to keep my current itinerary... with a bit of anxiety, I packed away and could not fall  asleep until I drank whiskey (I sound like an alcoholic lol)

May 3rd

The next morning was a beautiful day, some planes were flying towards the fire but everything was under control so my roommate and I went on for breakfast and our other friend joined us. Everything felt great till I got to the airport and my flight was delayed but I eventually got out.

Landing in Toronto was another story, I reached my cellphone and received missed calls and text messages, my roomate informed me that she had to evacuate very quickly because the fire was in Beaconhill and she couldn't see anything because of the smokey situation. News were all over the wildfire in Fort McMurray at this point... this is when disaster hit in Alberta.

I call each of my closest friend to make sure that they were safe, all of them got out - it was such a blessing but the unknown is tormenting everybody by now - "is our house on fire?" "we left our pets in the house!" "where are we going to live?"

Fast forward, June 2nd - the day where some resident of Fort Mcmurray could enter the town to clean.