Weyakwin evacuees head home

Kraus herself was evacuated for 18 days and running town operations and information sharing out of a hotel in Prince Albert. She said, especially with photos and rumours being shared online, there were some very tense days.

“People were posting things like ‘Weyakwin is burning’… There was a lot of false information that created a really hard emotional time for people,” she said adding it’s important people get information from the right places.

With that in mind, and her own experience returning a week ago, Kraus said she was worried as she drove up Highway 2 and saw the charred, black trees lining the highway.

“The closer I got the more worried I was that that was what Weyakwin was going to look like,” she said.

“Then when I actually got into the community and saw that our trees are still here. We still have our brush and our lawns and lilac bushes, I was so happy. It was wonderful. Then sleeping in my own bed last night was heaven. “

From the front steps of the Thunder Hill store owner Ben Herman can look at the fires legacy burnt into the trees just on the other side of the highway.

“It’s such a beautiful area and now you are going to drive for miles and see just desolation really, that’s the sad part,” he said.

“All the older people are telling me now we are going to have a lot of blueberries and it will be good for moose, maybe there is one bright outlook to that.”

Herman explained he remained in his store until the mandatory evacuation took effect and even returned once when it appeared the situation might turn around.

“Last week, Wednesday, I was in the store at four in the morning. I was running generators and I had to use paper towel with water on it to breathe in here,” he said. “I said ‘that’s enough, why you going to die over a building?’ It doesn’t make sense.”

Although he was worried about thousands of dollars in merchandise that could go bad if power was lost for too long, Herman made his way to Prince Albert where he stayed in a motel for the duration of the evacuation.

“We were just stressed, totally stressed because you don’t know if you are going to have anything to come back to, same with your pets and things like that. And losing income of course, mind you there is no income to be made because all my traffic and income comes off the highway,” he said.

“It was pretty hard, just about driving you nuts. You can’t enjoy anything.”

Luckily, when Herman returned the power had held up in the community and even his ice cream survived the fire.

“They did a good job, really for the conditions they had to work under, my God,” he said. “ It was quite actually a good thing for SaskPower how fast they got things going.”

kmalone@rawlco.com

Follow on Twitter: @KellyGerMalone

by Kelly Malone

Weyakwin evacuees head home

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