northernmusician's Journal, 09 May 2016

Thank you for posting this link - lots of information there! Watched the helicopter flyover video and am actually surprised at the number of homes and apartments that survived, and the roads look good (at least from that distance). But it will burn on for months? Oh, my.... 

Thanks for the link Northern....the firefighters sound a lot more optimistic today with the continuing cooler temperatures and yesterday's rain. The news feeds tell the larger story...here is a smaller story, more personal for me...I copied the following directly from today's morning report from one of our managers, located in a small town southwest of Edmonton......."Nothing happened over the weekend other than our town received a whole bunch more evacuees from Fort MacMurray. Our town is amazingly generous to those in need regardless of our current, personal financial stresses that this town is feeling. I love living in this town".......I couldn't agree more! I also wanted to express OUR gratitude for what we are hearing and seeing regarding countles acts of generosity and kindness, from locals in small towns, to the bigger cities, to our fellow provinces here in Canada and to our neighbors to the North (♡Alaska) and South both the rest of the United States and Mexico (who sent a firefighting team early last week). From all of us here...thank you!!...very proud and thankful to live where we do, surrounded by great neighbors no matter how close or far. 

Buildings are there, but most will be insurance claims because of smoke damage. It's a horrible situation. 

@Steven - on our national news they showed the large piles of clothing donations made by local people to the fire evacuees. They were so moved by the generosity! Relief organizations often are not able to move very quickly for anything other than very immediate needs. Most people do not think about the fact that we are impacted on a worldwide basis by the pollution caused by such a raging fire. @Northern, yes smoke damage is costly too. Truly a disaster... 

Someone said the PM has promised to match donations to Red Cross? Is this true? Did he mean personally? That area has provided taxes from oil in the neighbourhood of $200B and the federal government won't commit dollars? Tell me this isn't true. 

My friend's niece and nephew and their family were evacuated. They are sleeping in a camper at a relative's home. They do not know if they have a house or not. They are in terrible shape because the husband has been fighting a very rare form of heart (yes, heart) cancer and cannot work. They have a GoFundMe page to try to get back on their feet. If any of you Canadians or other FS'ers are interested in helping this family, message me, and I will provide the GoFundMe link. Thanks. 

The Federal government is matching dollar for dollar all donations made to Red Cross for the fire and evacuees relief...I don't think that they are even capping it...google red cross fort mcmurray fire donations for the link 

Thanks for sharing Hermiones mom...so many lives affected...do you know what town/city your friend's niece and nephew are in? 

I believe that this family is in Ft. MacMurray. You can find them on Facebook as Prayers for Wylie and on GoFundMe at https://www.gofundme.com/8xebsk