SAIT at capacity with Fort McMurray evacuees
Posted May 6, 2016 4:45 pm.
Last Updated May 6, 2016 4:54 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It took less than two days for SAIT’s student residence to be at capacity with 400 Fort McMurray evacuees seeking refuge.
Sonya Pickatt has been living in the northern city for more than 30 years. She said was overwhelmed with relief Friday morning as she took a walk with her grandson on a sunny SAIT campus. It’s a far cry from the terror she felt following her daughter in a vehicle through the flames on the highway out of the town.
“I said ‘Our tires are going to melt,'” she said. “Then just trying to deal with everything else and my daughter being nine months pregnant and ready to give birth here at any time. It’s been pretty stressful. We didn’t get out with anything. We didn’t have time.”
Listen to the full interview between Pickatt and 660’s Dave Will here.
Morgan Sheppard fled his home of 26 years suddenly and found himself at the SAIT campus less than three days later.
“The hospitality here is unbelievable. I really don’t know what to say about it. People down here are just being so good to people from up north,” he said.
Sheppard says Thursday night was his first good night sleep in three days, and only now is the reality of what might be left behind starting to sink in.
“Myself personally, I don’t think we’re going to have much to go back to. I hope we do, but if we don’t, I guess it’s just the rebuilding stages right now and hopefully everybody, including the government and the rest of Canada, can pull together and help us out, the same with what they (did) with a lot of other places that went through the same thing,” he said.
