Justin Trudeau gets first-hand look at wildfire devastation in Fort McMurray
Posted May 13, 2016 6:26 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
EDMONTON – Prime Minister Trudeau is getting a first-hand look at the devastation of the Alberta wildfire that forced the evacuation of the Fort McMurray area.
The prime minister landed in Fort McMurray this morning and boarded a military helicopter for an aerial tour of the city. He says he’s hearing praise from other world leaders for how well the evacuation went.
“I’ll take a little bit of credit for that that I don’t deserve — I pass it on to the province that deserves a lot more, and to the emergency services that deserve a hell of a lot more for the way it was coordinated.”
The helicopter ride took Trudeau over a patchwork of devastated neighbourhoods where some homes still stand, while others have been burned to their foundations. Alberta officials say 2,432 structures have been destroyed, 530 damaged and 25,000 saved.
Trudeau is also getting a look from the ground of some of the damaged neighbourhoods.
In the forest surrounding the Fort McMurray airport where Trudeau landed, trees looked like little more than used match sticks, charred right up to the tarmac, and the ground was blackened.
“I heard there were situations and peculiarities in this fire that give us pause for reflection on how we move forward,” Trudeau told Fort McMurray Fire Chief Darby Allen, who led the fight against the fierce fire. “I’m very, very interested in not just what we manage to do to get through this one, but what we can do around minimizing the impacts of the next one – because it will come.”
Allen says having the prime minister visit is a morale boost. “Right now the residents aren’t there, but there are hundreds and hundreds of emergency workers. I think they’ll get a lift from that.”
Melissa Blake, mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, accompanied Trudeau, saying it was critical for him to tour the burned neighbourhoods. “Once you see it, you know not just how daunting the work will be, but how important it is to make it back to what it was before.”
Trudeau was also accompanied by Notley and some federal cabinet ministers, who are part of a special committee that will co-ordinate aid and reconstruction efforts in the city.
Alberta Member of Parliament Kent Hehr, who heads the special committee, says it’s important to show people that the federal government will be there for them in the reconstruction.
“It’s very difficult for me as an Albertan,” says Hehr, who represents a Calgary district.
More than 88,000 people were forced from their homes when fire ate its way into the oilsands city May 3rd.
Trudeau arrived almost two weeks after a massive wildfire ignited, tearing through the Alberta town and surrounding areas, causing several oil sands operations to shut down.
Some critics are calling Trudeau’s visit too little, too late.
Trudeau has been defending the decision to delay a personal visit to give firefighters and first responders the space and focus to do their job rather than be distracted by a prime ministerial visit.
The fire is now 2,410 square kilometres in size and has moved away from the city. It’s expected to burn in forested areas for at least a few more weeks.
The more than 80,000 evacuees have begun receiving direct financial assistance from the Alberta government and the Canadian Red Cross as officials asked for patience in getting residents home.
Canadian Red Cross chief executive Conrad Sauve has said that each adult will receive $600 Canadian (US$467) and each child will get $300 Canadian (US$234) in what he called the most important and fastest direct cash transfer in the organization’s history. It totals $50 million Canadian. (US$39 million).
That’s in addition to the $1,250 Canadian (US$973) per adult and $500 Canadian (US$390) per dependent from the government.
