Natural Disaster by J. S. Marlo

J. S. Marlo's BWL Books

This week has been tough (I'm writing this post on May 2, 2020). It brought back lots of heartbreaking memories.

This weekend is the anniversary of the 2016 wildfire that  devastated Fort McMurray, destroying entire neighborhoods, and forcing the evacuation of more than 80,000 people  in just a few hours. The fire was so intense, it created its own weather system, producing fierce winds and smoke clouds that generated lightning. It cost the life of one person, a young woman who died in a traffic accident as she drove out of town through a curtain of fire. Though the death toll could have been way higher, her death was still one too many.

I flew out on the last plane of the evening before the full evacuation was ordered. It was a fluke as my granddaughter was sick and my daughter needed help. I didn't know I was on the last plane or that the airport would close its commercial flights after we departed.

From the air, I could see the wild fire and the raging flames burning the forest. The fire was later nicknamed The Beast. It looked like a giant open mouth ready to engulf the entire town. At that moment, I was certain I would never come back home. The firefighters had to bulldozer rows of houses in order to create a firebreak. In the end, the fire surrounded the town and many neighborhoods were lost, but they saved the hospital (in blue where the arrow points in flood picture), the water treatment plant, and the other essential buildings, and the town survived. The air quality, which usually runs on a scale of 1 to 10, as 10 being extremely dangerous for your health, was above 40.

The fire started on May 1, 2016, burned out of control until July 5, 2016, and was fully extinguished more than a year later on August 2, 2017. It destroyed 1,456,810 acres of land (roughly 5 times the size of Los Angeles). It took years to rebuild, but we can still see vacant lots where homeowners or businesses just left town without rebuilding. The Covid-19 pandemic was just another bump into our recovery. Many stores closed, but essential services were still open, and there was no shortage of anything (except toilet paper for the first week...which I still don't understand.). People were awesome at social distance and we had  less than twenty cases in the last two months. Then this week happened...

The river broke when it was still cold outside and it created an ice jam of 25 km (15 miles).

On the fourth anniversary of the wildfire of the century, and during the pandemic of the century, we're in the middle of the flood of the century.

The river didn't just overflow, it flowed backward, which was something the elders had never seen, submerging neighborhoods that had never seen any flood water since their creation a century ago. Some of the neighborhoods under water were the same ones that were destroyed by the fire. Some people lost their houses again, houses they'd just finished rebuilding, More than 13,000 people had to be evacuated and re-lodged wherever they could in town. Social distancing went down the river. Water turned brownish and we're under a boiling water advisory that won't be lifted until September 2020.  And most of the stores that were still open went under water.

Amid all this, my family is among the lucky ones. My home survived the fire and the flood, and my husband didn't lose his job. The ice jam broke yesterday and the water receded. Again we lost one person, one too many. Today the destruction will be assessed and the cleaning will start. As a community, we will survive, but it will be another big scar over the huge one that had just barely begun to heal.

It's scary how destructive nature can be, but it's also amazing how resilient people can be, and how such tragedies can bring out the best in all of us.

Stay safe. Many hugs!
JS

 

J. S. Marlo's Website

Outside my comfort zone by J. S. Marlo

J. S. Marlo BWL Author Page

What I’ll say next might surprise some people, but by nature, I am in introvert person. I don’t like crowds and I’m not comfortable speaking in public. When my publisher suggested I do a book signing for Voted Out at the local bookstore, I said, “Sure. Sounds like fun.” But deep down, I was scared. So I met with the manager, a wonderful lady named Jackie, a few months ago, and the first thing we did was to select a date. We picked last weekend Saturday March 24^th—as you can see I survived.

 

She ordered my books, which arrived in time for the signing, and told me she might be able to  arrange for an interview with the local newspaper and radio station. Again, I said, “Sure. Sounds like fun.” But deep down, I wasn’t just scared, I was now scared out of my wits. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans...they can go south in a heartbeat. An emergence arose for which I had to fly south on March 12^th and I wasn’t scheduled to fly back home until March 23^rd around suppertime. Then my returning flight was cancelled and I was re-booked on a later flight arriving at 11pm on the 23^rd amid the forecast of a snowstorm. The interviews never happened, but now I was terrified of missing my own book signing. Talk about irony!

Before I left, I had dropped posters at the bookstore so they could advertise the signing, and while I was gone I took care of some details. I had my nails done in romantic-murder-mystery theme, I got a sticky nametag with my name & logo, and I bought chocolate eggs for treats. I took all of these to the store along with business cards and novelty pens (pink, purple, and blue).

During the signing I was told it might help if I mingle with the customers, so lots of...Hello. How are you? What are you looking for? What do you like to read? Well, unless I was standing near my table, my nice nametag with my author name on it was mistaken for an employee tag. I received lots of requests for books and authors I had never heard of, but it also allowed me to suggest my book on a few occasions, and when I added I would also gladly sign it for them, they stared at me with a 'deer in headlights' look before asking, “You’re the author?” Then we would chat about everything, including my hair. Actually, many encounters started with a comment about my purple and blue hair. One lady even asked me to sign her book with the three pens so it would look like my hair. I wrote a lovely thank you for coming and nice chatting with you note inside her book, and each word was written in a different color. I regret not taking a picture...

90% of the people I met that day were strangers and I had an amazing time interacting with them. I was uncomfortable at first, but it got easier as the day when by. Some people came to chat without buying anything, some came to buy without chatting, and some came to chat and buy something. I was delighted to talk to all of them and I want to thank them all for coming and taking a few minutes to brighten my day.  It was so interesting and I had so much fun that I now wonder why on earth I was so scared.

See you next time!

JS

Note: I would also like to thank Jackie, Sarah, and all the staff at Coles in Fort McMurray for hosting my book signing. I couldn’t have done it without you!

 J. S. Marlo's Website

Even Bad Days are Good Days by Nancy M Bell

photo credit: CBC

As some of you may know Fort McMurray, Alberta is on fire. While the fire has passed the city now, new evacuations to the north were ordered May 17th, 2016. I have been helping with the relief efforts through the animal shelter I volunteer at. Last Sunday we held an open house for Ft Mac evacuees who needed food and supplies for their animals. It was both sad and wonderful at the same time. Some of the people have lost their homes and everything in them, as well as their jobs. Many business are destroyed and now the fire, nicknamed The Beast, is bearing down on the work camps north of town where 4,000 workers who have just returned to work this week were evacuated today. The effects are far reaching and not just financial.
The uncertainty and sheer terror of fleeing the fire has marked every one involved. Even those of us on the outskirts are feeling the stress. I can only imagine how those who are displaced and living in temporary housing, with friends or camping out in RVs must be feeling. But through it all our resilience shines through. We keep on keeping on and doing what needs to be done.

This experience coupled with the experience I went through this past winter when my oldest son (36 years old) spend eight weeks in intensive care with us being told not to expect him to leave the unit alive has brought home to me the realization that we never know what the next day might bring. The last thing I expected on Christmas Eve was to hear my son was in ICU on life support, my husband was on a plane to Winnipeg and my youngest son was driving across three provinces to be with his brother. I stayed home to arrange care for the animals. Christmas Day I spent alone with the critters in a flood of tears. The bright spot was my ex-daughter-in-law kindly invited me to her house for a few hours in the afternoon. In the midst of tragedy we find kindness. I caught a plane at 5am on Boxing Day to be with him.

During the long days and nights spent at the hospital with my daughter-in-law at his bedside not knowing if he would wake up and if he did would he know who we were was hard. But when faced with the possibility that what he suffered from had no cure and we would be faced with watching him fade away from us made still having him there a blessing. No matter how awful things got and how scary and uncertain things were, the fact he was still with us was something to hang onto. Those bad days were good days. I know it was unrealistic but I refused to let myself believe that he wouldn't get well. On the white board in his room I wrote across the top on one of the darkest days "He is getting better" I wrote his full name, but I won't use that here. At that point we had no idea what was wrong, but they were throwing around things like prion disease, Crutchfield-Jacobs Disease, and a few others I've forgotten. All with no treatment and no cure. Even when he lost the ability to speak and then to swallow, those were good days because he was still with us and there was still hope. New Years Eve passed without me hardly realizing it happened. Late on January 11 the resident came into the room and gave us a miracle. They had a diagnosis, he had a rare form of encephalitis, but it was treatable. The day started out badly, it was his birthday and it was hard to see him lying there on a ventilator, drugged to the gills, but it was a good day because we finally knew what was wrong and it was treatable. Even bad days are good days.

So too with the evacuees, they are still alive, they have their families, most of them have their pets, although some are still in the rescue centres as they search for the owners, the vast majority were saved. Yes, these are hard days, bad days, and there are more to come once the crisis is passed. There is a ton of rebuilding to do in the Mac, and a ton of healing for the community. Some will leave and return home, some will return to Fort McMurray and start again. The good we have to hold onto in these bad days is we will rebuild and Fort Mac will rise again. All of Alberta is behind them and the support and help won't go away once the news crews pack up and the fire moves on and all that is left is to shift through the ashes and start anew. There's a lot of Maritimers living and working in Fort Mac and they stand with us as well. We are Alberta Strong. #albertastrong There are good days ahead.


On a different note:

I have a new release in the Arabella's Secret series. The second book is Arabella Dreams and picks up her story after she leaves Cornwall at the end of The Selkie's Song and makes her new life in southern Alberta. It's available on Amazon, Kobo and wherever good books are sold. Available in print and ebook.

Arabella Angarrick is heartbroken. Exiled from her beloved Cornwall, she must come to terms with life on the Canadian prairies and her arranged marriage to D’Arcy Rowan. She struggles to reconcile herself to life on a remote ranch with a man she barely knows. He knows he’s getting a two for one deal and Bella is thankful he is happy to welcome her unborn child into his home. D’Arcy is a kind man, but try as she might, Bella just can’t bring herself to love him. Her heart still yearns for Vear Du, the father of her baby. Will she ever stop dreaming of him?