Wildfire: Breathing a struggle for some Northern residents

Stella Charles is one of those people. Breathing became an issue for her on Saturday because of smoke in the area.

She was suffering from chest pains.

“I was having a hard time breathing. I had to use puffers,” she said, coughing intermittently as she spoke.

On Sunday, her homecare aide called to tell Charles to “get ready.

“They gave me a half hour and they came and picked me up,” Charles said.

She was taken to a hall to wait for a ride, and around 9 p.m. that night she was taken in a van to the Prince Albert Inn.

Charles’ family was among the majority of residents from La Ronge who was taken by bus to Saskatoon.

“I have to phone home today to find out what’s going on,” she said.

Charles saw familiar faces eating breakfast at the hotel on Monday morning, and stopped over to chat with them.

After the chaos of the night before, things had settled down a bit. Charles said she and a few others were getting “out of breath” making their way up the stairs to second-floor rooms, but even that was being remedied in the morning as they were set to get rooms on the main floor.

Accommodations centred in Prince Albert and Saskatoon

The large numbers of evacuees headed to Saskatoon will be housed in a soccer centre, hotels, or with friends and family.

The soccer centre is acting as a congregate facility, said Deanna Wysoskey, co-ordinator for emergency social services and business continuity for the ministry of social services.

People were setting up a congregate facility at the Prince Albert campus of Saskatchewan Polytechnic on Monday afternoon.

If additional people need to leave their homes and don’t have family and friends to stay with, they’ll head to that facility, or to hotel accommodations in Prince Albert or Saskatoon.

The most appealing option is usually with friends and family, Wysoskey said.

“More so in P.A., but also in Saskatoon, people do have friends and family and they would rather stay there with friends and family than in a congregate facility or a hotel.”

That was the case for 140 people from Clearwater, who are entirely staying in the homes of acquaintances, she said.

People in that situation receive support for obtaining groceries.

As for what social services was working on Monday, Wysoskey said the focus is “to get people settled and providing them with updates on the conditions at home.”

She also acted to squelch rumours that areas like Stanley Mission and Sucker River are being evacuated.

As of Monday around noon, only people with special health needs had left the communities.

No evacuation orders had been ordered there, despite some smoke in Stanley Mission.

claskowski@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @chelsealaskowsk

by Chelsea Laskowski

Wildfire: Breathing a struggle for some Northern residents

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