Reuniting families

Families displaced by the forest fire evacuations say they can’t wait to reunite with loved ones who are now scattered across Ontario.

Thousands of people from First Nation communities across this region were forced from their homes because of the threat of forest fires. Many were transported through Thunder Bay and were flown to other communities. About 250 evacuees stayed in the city and took up temporary lodgings at the Victoria Inn hotel.

King Jacintha finished her breakfast on Saturday at a nearby restaurant with her nine-month-old son, Carlos Rae. Jacintha evacuated her Sandy Lake home on Monday.

She left everything behind and was separated from her partner, Jose Rae, who was now in Marathon, Ont.  

“Everybody kind of got separated,” she said. “I hope he comes back up here to Thunder Bay. I was actually lucky that my family and I were all sent at the same flight. We call came here together. That’s a good thing.”

Forest fires don’t typically make it as close as they did to Sandy Lake, but as of Saturday some fires were less than 10 kilometres away.

“That never happens,” she said of the evacuation. “The fact that we have to be taken away from our homes and placed somewhere else is not right. I left behind my sense of belonging, my failsafe and my home.”

With all that was happening she said she was happy to have such a nice welcoming from Thunder Bay.

Darren Crowe said Thunder Bay has gone a long way to make their stay comfortable with the hotel room, bus tickets and meals.  While he had his girlfriend, Chinessa Moskotaywenene, and his one-year-old daughter, Kaley, he said the rest of his family was scattered.

“Some are in Sioux Lookout and in Marathon,” Crowe said. “I want to go back home. That’s my baby’s home. She misses her home.”

Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Stand Beardy said they are working out a way to bring all the families together, but it would take time.

So far there has been no loss of life but the evacuation process showed that the province needed a more effective plan especially with 12 more First Nation communities on the evacuation waitlist.

“We’re sorting out the families now because in the evacuations a lot of those families were split,” Beardy said. “What we are discussing right now is bringing those people home but the first task must be to track these family members down to make sure everybody is ok and accounted for.”

Beardy said he spoke with Premier Dalton McGuinty about setting up a receiving centre in Thunder Bay. It would make it easier to track people down and bring them all to one location.

“We need to do better planning,” he said. “What was missing here was there was no central mechanism in terms of coordinating all the resources in Ontario. We never had to deal with a crisis of this magnitude before. No one thought about moving 3,800 people in three days before.”

He said he hoped this would be a lesson learned and that there would be a proper evacuation strategy formed.