by CONNIE TABBERT
Editor
COBDEN — Samantha Buttle-Warren remembers the escape all to vividly, even though it’s been a few weeks since it happened.
“I’m panicking,” she recalled, telling her husband, “Steve, get me out of this hellhole.”
Tears stream down the young mother’s cheeks, her voice choking up as she recalls the evacuation in Fort McMurray.
“I got us out of there,” recalled Steve.
The two are sitting at her mother’s kitchen table in Cobden, recalling their escape from the wildfires in Fort McMurray, Alberta, where they have been living, Steve for 16 years, Samantha for just over three years.
It was the end of April and they had been watching the wild fires from the right side of their home, which was in the Thickwood subdivision.
Samantha had just finished her first year in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing while Steve, who is an independent consultant, was working for Sun Corp. and was at one of their camps.
On May 3 at 11:30 a.m., Steve recalled that some of the oil workers were leaving because their homes were on fire or their areas were being evacuated. He decided it was also time for him to go home.
Samantha recalled that morning that Austin, 5, said something very unusual – he didn’t want to go school.
“I thought it was so weird for him to say that,” she said.
When Steve arrived home, he was astounded to find the children’s bouncy castle covered in bugs, so he quickly deflated it, folded it up and put it in the garage. The bugs were ahead of the fire, the sky was just black with them, he said.
Samantha said while there were blue skies in the front of the home, “it was Armaggedon at the back. It was horrifying.”
They heard on the radio that downtown Fort McMurray was being evacuated and that the radio station was going off-air, but would return once it was set up at the RCMP detachment.
“We were watching the fires come across the forest,” Steve said.
Just before 4 p.m., the emergency alert buzzer came on the radio alerting everyone to evacuate the city.
Samantha had been packing the loaner vehicle they had with things the children would need and want, things that couldn’t be replaced and some clothes.
While the radio alert was telling them to go north, Steve said he couldn’t do that.
“I wasn’t OK with that,” he said. “I’ve lived here for 16 years, I knew there were no gas stations, no places to stop.” “I said, ‘we need to go south.’”
For two hours, they waited, Samantha getting more upset, while Steve was trying to keep her calm, as well as their two boys, Austin, 5, and Ayden, 2.
Time to Evacuate
When the highway going south was opened, Steve knew it was time to go. Once on the highway, while he knew it was the right direction to go, his thought was, “This is insane. It’s gridlock. Bumper to bumper traffic.”
Embers were raining down on them from the flames, which were just on the other side of the road. The smoke was so thick, it was difficult to see too far ahead.
He recalled driving past a home he had once lived in, now on fire. It was difficult for Samantha and Steve to watch as some people stood on top of their homes watering the roof down with hoses.
They went past Beacon Hill, or what it once was, that was now nothing but burned homes.
“Five hundred to 600 houses just gone,” Steve said. “It was like a burned, barren field.”
Where there had been a trailer court, now looked like bombs had gone off, because when the propane tanks exploded, they left large, gaping holes.
Driving along, Steve admitted he was crying.
“It’s very emotional to see your town burning,” he recalled. “It was very traumatizing.”
Cutting in, Samantha said they weren’t even leaving Fort McMurray yet, because they had to go and get their own vehicle, which was being serviced.
“When we showed up to get our car, a grown man was crying, just bawling his eyes out,” Steve recalled. “He told us he had just lost everything. He had no money, no gas, and he had just watched his house go up in flames.”
Steve said even though he had been seeing the devastation, it wasn’t until he saw this man just absolutely devastated, that there was some serious trouble.
Once their own Suburban was packed, they headed for Edmonton, which was just over 400 kilometres away, arriving about 6 a.m. May 4.
Throughout the long night, while there were only four people in the vehicle, there was a fifth one’s voice always nearby. Sandy Buttle, Samantha’s mom who lives in Cobden, was on the phone constantly.
“We were on the phone every half hour all night long giving a blow-by-blow of what was happening,” Samantha said.
But, it wasn’t just Samantha whom Sandy and Jack (her father) had to worry about. Their son Jonathan, whose place of employment burned down, also lives in Fort MacMurray. But, instead of returning to Cobden, Jonathan rented an apartment in Calgary.
They recalled the bumper-to-bumper traffic and passing vehicles that were parked on the side of the highway with no gas. People were walking, pulling suitcases behind them.
However, the Warrens had no room for anyone else in their vehicle, because along with the four of them, there were two dogs, small Princess Penelope and large Bella.
On the Road
For the next two days, Samantha, Steve, Austin, Ayden, Princess Penelope and Bella remained at a hotel in Edmonton. However, knowing they would not be able to return to their home for at least a month, they knew it was time to head east, to Samantha’s parent’s home in Cobden.
As they travelled across the country, Steve said the kindness and support they received was unbelievable.
He recalled when they arrived in Saskatoon after travelling from Edmonton, and their children were hungry. The woman behind the hotel desk at Main Stay Suites asked if they wanted anything, and while the parents said no, the kids said yes. She brought them each a piece of toast with butter.
“It was such a small gesture, but it meant the world to us right then,” Steve said. “When she told us our room was (being paid for by her), I broke down and cried.”
The next day they stayed in a small town in Manitoba, where a friend of Steve’s had made reservations. Samantha said a woman talked to them and realized they were in a world of chaos, having left the wild fires behind. She said she would watch the kids for an hour if the parents just wanted time to regroup.
“She could see we were stressed,” she recalled.
Safe Arrival
The next day, they travelled 14 hours, arriving in Sault Ste. Marie. And on the evening of Sunday, May 8, after five days on the road, they arrived at Nanna and Poppa’s house at the corner of Main and Gould streets in Cobden.
Austin has been enrolled in Kindergarten at Cobden District Public School.
“I wanted him to have a kindergarten graduation,” Samantha said.
Samantha and Steve know their home is still standing, because they’ve seen it through satellite imagery. What they don’t know, is how everything is. They know there will be smoke damage and they believe their fridge and freezer will have to be thrown out, because they are closed and the power has most likely been turned off.
“We just filled the freezer for the summer,” Steve said.
The couple figure by June 2 they will have an idea of what they will be going home to. Steve is returning on that date to do an assessment.
Samantha recalled when they arrived in Cobden, they only had summer clothes, and it was quite cold. But, there are generous and kind people in Cobden, and soon the family had warm clothes.
They went to Ottawa to talk with their insurance representative and register with Red Cross.
“There are certain processes to follow as evacuees,” Steve said.
When they went to Lululemon at the Rideau Centre to purchase some outfits, the sales lady let them have their items for free once she found out they were evacuees and the clerk at the Gap gave them 40 percent off everything.
Michelle Dupuis at Main St. Spa in Cobden gave them both pedicures for free. The Phaze 1 Fitness Centre in Pembroke gave them a month’s free membership.
“It’s all been so overwhelming,” Steve said, adding, “especially when you’re the one usually giving.”
But, the Warrens know they are fortunate, as their house is still standing.
“Some of our friends have lost everything,” Samantha said.
However, Steve believes a fire of this magnitude won’t happen again for a long time because there is nothing left to fuel a fire. He recalled the last time he was evacuated from his Fort McMurray home, and that was in 2001 or 2002, and that was mostly because of the smoke.
Steve said there was a “perfect storm” for this forest fire, considering the very dry conditions and 45 kilometre per hour winds, which tossed embers around.
A non-political person, Steve said he’s pretty sure Rachel Notley, the current Premier of Alberta, will not be in power following the next election. She allowed $15 million to be cut from the forest fire prevention budget, which meant there were no pre-burns this season, he explained.
He believes Brian Jean, who is a Conservative MP, will be the next Premier because although he lost his house to the forest fire, he remained, helping those wherever he could, even handing out water from the back of a pick-up truck.
When Samantha was asked what it was like for her to be in such a situation she had never encountered before, she recalled she was panicking, but knew she also had to remain calm.
“Steve was driving and we had two helpless children and two dogs,” she said. “There was just the two of us to protect the helpless.”
She also doesn’t believe Fort McMurray was equipped to handle such a situation.
“There was complete and utter chaos,” she said. “We spend millions of our tax dollars on the military. Why were they not called in to help us?,” she questioned.
However, Steve pointed out that 88,000 people were being evacuated from a city that has one way out and one way in.
He knows his family was one of the last 10,000 to leave because he wanted to get them out safely. He knew there would be gridlock and people panicking. He waited until the last possible moment to leave, and even though Samantha and her mother wanted him to go north, he knew he couldn’t go in that direction.
A strong believer that everything in life happens for a reason, Steve believes the reason for this fire was to show them how spoiled they were.
“This makes you humble,” he said.
