Yellowknife evacuees say N.W.T. gov't should have been quicker with evacuation order

After being on the road for 17 hours, Mariana Silva of Yellowknife is happy to be in High Level, Alta.

But she's also questioning whether the evacuation order for her city should have come sooner than Wednesday evening. She isupset that many residentswereexposedto wildfire smoke longer than they neededto be.

"We were not able to breathe in offices, even with the HEPA filters," she said.

Silva believesthere was "information hoarding" by the N.W.T government, when it came to providing updates on the forest fires threatening the city. She compares it to patterns of communication during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Silva's cousin Shannon Cumming, a resident of Yellowknife, agreed.

He said through the day onWednesday, before theevacuation order was announced that evening, they were hearing about organizations asking their employees to flee Yellowknife, and about people queuing up at gas stations.

"As members of public, what were we to do?We were told to wait for thepress conference that evening, which even started late. It was troubling to understand what the actual instructions were," he said.

"The communication was all over the place. I hopelessons are learnt from this and the public shouldn't be put through this. We expect to be told the truth."

Cumming said it was a runaround of communication from the government. He feels it quickly went from being told an evacuation was not likelyto being told evacuation was happening.

"Stop telling me things are 'unprecedented.' This is happening all the time," he said, referring to poor communications from the government.

"I have issues with the communication with this government."

Asked if the evacuation order should have been issued sooner,Shane Thompson, N.W.T.'s minister of municipal and community affairs, said on Thursday that the order was based on the most relevant information at that moment around the state of fires.

"We were prepared to move forward if we could not get things done because the situations werechanging so rapidly," he said.

"Question was asked would I have changed it? No.That was based on the information and data given to me by the departments and we moved forward on that."

Cumming wishes to return to his community once the fires subside and said he respects the tireless work the firefighters are putting into protecting his community.

While driving out, Silva witnessed smoldering in the night. Now, she is trying to find a place to sleep at night.

"Now, I feel very emotional. It's devastating to see such beautiful lands just destroyed by fire," Silva said.

"A really good, nice thing was Alberta firefighters handing out free water and gas to people. It was really heartwarming."

Jeff Zachow, a resident of High Level, saw his own community evacuated a few years ago because of theChukeggCreek wildfire. He remembers beingwelcomed with open arms by the community in Whitecourt, Alta.

Zachow said now it's their turn in High Level to help evacuees from N.W.T.Zachow has been helping residents in the community as it seesan influx of evacuees coming from Fox Lake, Garden River and recently from Hay River, N.W.T.

"And now this big flood of people is cruising through from Yellowknife, so it's pretty overwhelming for everything, like gas stations," he said.

"Everyone is in support of all people here. Everyone is chipping in to help out and giving free spaces to live at. It's a good community here."

Zachow said he is leaving the town for the weekend and said there is some space at his shop for people to park their vehicles.

He said local evacuees are getting restless in their hotels and kids do not have any place to play besides roaming in parking lots.