Wildfire evacuees lacking basics

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This article was published 05/09/2017 (2965 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Baby strollers and balloon animals for the tots and a TV for the adults were on the donation wishlist of wildfire evacuees on Tuesday.

Northern Manitoba families evacuated last week with babies, toddlers and kids were finding basic essentials in short supply at the WSF Soccer North complex on Leila Avenue.

Keeping the kids occupied was job one — a magician who entertained there over the weekend marked a first for most kids who’d never seen such a show.

Parents and Red Cross officials praised community efforts like that along with a concert and feast held at a north end community agency and a show at The Forks with powwow dancers over the holiday weekend.

The Canadian Red Cross had set up play areas for kids at both emergency shelters it opened for evacuees last week, but it’s hard keeping kids indoors all day, parents said.

And the situation changes almost hourly.

Sometime over the next couple of days, for instance, Red Cross officials hope they’ll be able to close down one of the two shelters, but they haven’t identified whether it will be the soccer centre or the RBC Convention Centre.

Since Aug. 10, the Red Cross has supported approximately 6,000 people from Poplar River First Nation and three communities in the Island Lake region: Wasagamack, St. Theresa Point and Garden Hill First Nations.

They’re divided between Brandon and Winnipeg.

The pressure eased a bit since some evacuees were headed home on Tuesday.

Some 100 health and school officials flew home to Poplar River First Nation, ahead of hundreds of others who will return to the fly-in community located 340 kilometres north of Winnipeg on the east shore of Lake Winnipeg.

It’s been nearly three weeks since wildfires forced out some 835 people from Poplar River and it will take the rest of the week to get the people who aren’t medical risks back again, due to a short airstrip. Only small planes carrying an average of 10 passengers can land at the First Nation.

“It should take about four days, by late Friday, and they should all be home,” said Shawn Feely, Canadian Red Cross vice-president for Manitoba and Nunavut.

As hotel rooms empty, so will the city’s two shelters. “Right from the beginning, we were moving people into hotels,” Feely said. That process will speed up now.

“We want to move more people out of the shelters and into hotels so we’ve reserved the rooms that were being used by Poplar River evacuees and as they’re freed up and cleaned, we’re moving people in,” Feely said.

That can’t come soon enough for Liberal MLA Judy Klassen, whose gigantic northern riding of Keewatinook includes the Island Lake area. She made the convention centre her base of operations, sleeping in her car the first night evacuees moved in. Now she’s parked at the soccer complex where Tuesday she was calling around frantically for more hotel rooms.

“I put out a call to (Premier) Brian Pallister that I want him to declare a state of emergency, because if he calls one, we can get the hotel rooms,” Klassen said, taking a break to speak with an Island Lake Family Services spokesman at the soccer centre.

“Within five minutes, Eileen (Clarke)’s office called me back,” she said. Clarke is Manitoba’s Indigenous affairs minister.

“I’m not asking for 700 hotel rooms but there are families of 10 here. We can get a family of 10 into two rooms. We have elders and prenatal (mothers) on cots here,” Klassen said.

Meanwhile, there’s a need for things like baby strollers and baby carriers.

“I got one from you guys, already,” mom Jamie Day said, gesturing to her daughter Janeda, 3, tucked into a stroller at her side.

“But barely. I had to wait for the small ones. They went first,” she said, explaining babies in arms got first dibs on a supply delivered by Island Lake Family Services on Friday.

“But my cousin, she needs one,” she said. Ditto for a number of other young mothers, some of whom pointed to broken buckles and wheels on strollers they’re using.

Island Lake Family Services raided local stores for strollers on Friday, cleaning them out.

“We went out and bought up as many strollers as we could find. Twenty-six of them,” Island Lake family services spokesman Philip Paul-Martin said. “They were snapped up, like that,” he said.

A TV for the adults to monitor the news isn’t part of the Red Cross’s setup at the soccer centre yet but parents requested one on Tuesday, plus a clown who can make animals out of balloons, if there’s anyone who wants to put on a show for several hundred adoring fans.

“That magic show yesterday? All these kids, they’d never seen a magic show. It was just full,” Sharon Beardy said.

“And maybe get a clown in here. The ones that make those animals.”

Not knowing how long the evacuation will last is a major concern, so in the coming days agencies like the one that Paul-Martin works for will approach the City of Winnipeg for help, to open up a community centre and co-ordinate with First Nations agencies to provide for transportation and snacks for the kids.

“It’s just the logistics of setting that up,” Paul-Martin said. “The City of Winnipeg, they’re good people. I’ve worked with them before. There’s never a shortage of willingness. It’s just, ‘How do you set it up,’” he said.

The Garden City Community Centre is conveniently located next door to the soccer centre.

“The longer this goes on, we’re going to need activities for the kids. They’re easy to please. Kids, you toss a basketball out and they’ll play for hours. And it would alleviate the pressure on the parents,” Paul-Martin said.

The Island Lake Tribal Council, the Me-Dian Credit Union, the Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre and the Manitoba Islamic Association are all reported to be helping with a community-wide effort to collect donations and raise cash.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca