Above is a photo of Di and John, in amazingly good spirits, considering the life-changing event that they have experienced. As residents of Jasper Alberta, they along with 25,000 others had to make a sudden nighttime evacuation of the town, before the inferno caused by a rapidly advancing forest fire engulfed it.
DI and John were at our house for lunch yesterday; their lives in flux, and uncertainty, recounting their experience of the evacuation. Here is the way their story landed with me, and I apologize for any misinterpretations and mistakes.
The evacuation order came at 10:00 at night, telling everyone they must take Highway 16 west to BC, and must be out of town by 3:00 AM. This only gave them five hours to escape. In the rush, Di’s bag with her important mementos was left behind, sitting beside the door. It was decided that Di, who dreads driving at night, would nevertheless have to drive their car, taking Harry their dog. John would drive Al and Joy’s car. They were friends, both incapacitated with medical problems who couldn’t drive themselves. Al had just gotten out of the hospital.
The entire population of Jasper was thrown into chaos with bumper to bumper traffic. After driving just a couple of blocks from their apartment, Di and John came to a standstill for half an hour, unable to join the slowly moving line of traffic. John then decided to just walk over to Al and Joy’s place. On her own, Di was soon able to enter the line of exiting cars and proceeded nervously, at the crawling speed, along with the others in the lineup.
When John got over to Al and Joy’s place his problems began. Both were already sitting in their car, but John discovered that the driver’s side door plus two of the others were locked, and Al and Joy couldn’t get to the driver’s door to unlock it, so John ended up going through the unlocked back door, climbing past one of his passengers, and squirming his way into the driver’s seat.
John also had to wait a long while, but finally was eventually able to join into the bumper to bumper parade out of town. It was very dark by the time he got to the “Shale Hill” just west of Jasper. Night driving in someone else’s car carrying passengers with medical problems can be stressful enough, but then things got worse when a downpour of rain began.
John turned on the windshield wipers, which began sweeping across the windshield, but they didn’t clear the water from it. He could hardly make out the taillights of the car in front of him. The windshield wipers just didn’t do anything despite their movement. His vision of the highway and traffic was almost totally obscured by the rain and darkness.
To order to stay on the highway, John began driving with the tires keeping on the textured grated-patterned pavement marking the edge of the road. By feeling the textured pavement, he could tell he was on the highway. The highway from Jasper to BC is full of twists, turns, and hills with steep drop-offs along the side.
At one point, full of frustration, John pulled out of the line of traffic onto a pull-off to see what was wrong with the windshield wipers. He discovered that the reason they weren’t cleaning the windshield was because the actual wipers were gone. It seemed that one of Al’s friends had taken them off so he could buy new ones, but then the evacuation happened before he could do that.
It was bumper to bumper, all along the 100 km (70 mile) route before you reach Highway 5 and can turn off to Valemount, BC. There were no other settlements, roads, or highways connecting to Highway 16 along the stretch to Highway 5. All of the Rest Areas and pull-offs were already packed with vehicles and their sleeping evacuees. Di didn’t have enough gas to make it to McBride, so she and John had planned to meet in Valemount which was closer.
After more than triple the time it normally takes to make the trip to Valemount, Di finally arrive at a parking lot there, and then later, John, and his passengers also arrived, after his eventful drive. Al and Joy were able to get a motel room, while John, Di, and Harry the dog, spent an uncomfortable night trying to sleep in the car. Valemount was packed with evacuees from Jasper. A campground with 45 spaces, had 600 cars parked for the night.
News of what structures were left unburned in Jasper is still unavailable, so Di and John don’t yet know for sure, whether their home and possessions still exist. They heard from one acquaintance who thought that their complex was still standing. Hopefully, that is the case. Undamaged or not, much of Jasper has been destroyed, and it will be weeks before people will be allowed to return.
You can view my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
Check the Jasper National Park FB page for updates and a list of residences addresses that are still standing , to come.
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