At a public engagement into last summer’s wildfire response in Yellowknife last night, residents who spoke were in agreement on one thing – there had been a huge failure of communication leading up to the city’s evacuation in August.
Many residents spoke out about being “blindsided” and “sitting in the dark” leading up the evacuation.
One resident likened the sudden switch from shelter in place alert to evacuation order in the city to a Monty Python sketch, with residents being told, “everything is fine” and then, “run away!”
Wednesday’s public engagement session was part of the City of Yellowknife’s “after-action assessment” into their 2023 wildfire response. The independent review is being conducted by Toronto-based consulting firm KPMG, and is set to be completed in June.
The goal of the review is to look at what the city got right and wrong during last year’s devastating wildfires, with a focus on how the city can be better prepared for wildfires and other disasters in the future.
KPMG specialist Leon Gaber conducted Wednesday’s public engagement meeting, calling it an important part of the early “information gathering” part of the review process.
Residents speak
For many residents, it was also one of the first chances they have had to speak about their experiences.
“The only people who really knew what was going on, I believe, were the people in government, the bureaucracy. They looked after each other, but they forgot about everybody else,” longtime Yellowknife resident Barry Taylor told CBC in an interview before the meeting.
“Hopefully, there will be some boats rocked and heads rolling,” Taylor said.
Scott Yuill spoke about his experience staying behind in Yellowknife as a volunteer.
“There was a lot of mistakes and a lot of stuff was overlooked,” he told CBC.
Among other things, there was no plan made for how volunteers would access food. He said that those left behind did a good job of figuring things out on the fly, but that for next year, he would like to see emergency plans that include those kinds of details.
Resident Alexandra Giroux said that she felt that the lack of planning she saw during the evacuation was dangerous.
“I think we got extremely, extremely lucky that we didn’t have car crashes, that we didn’t have deaths on the highway as we were leaving,” she said.
Looking to next fire season
As the meeting went on, residents looked forward, focusing on what they think the city needs to change.
Many residents said that next year, they want to see more planning from the city, with specific information shared about all possible courses of action in advance.
They also asked the city to share information in advance about what external circumstances would trigger a change in plan, like from shelter in place to a full-scale evacuation.
Yellowknife mayor Rebecca Alty said the city is working on it.
In an interview with CBC North Trailbreaker host Hilary Bird today, Alty said that the city is currently working with the territory on clarifying those details, and is planning to update their website to include more detailed information on emergency plans.
She also said that the city will make the full after-action assessment into last year’s wildfires public when it is completed in June.
For anyone who wants to contribute their experiences but didn’t attend Wednesday’s public engagement, there is also an online survey open until April 12.
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