Slave Lake Fire Disaster

I have watched fires, floods, tsunamis, earthquakes on tv and it is sad and at times overwhelming but most of the time, I personally do not know the people.

I am in the property management/investments business. This fire disaster has been too close for me. As property manager I have a portfolio of projects I manage. They are apartments, condos, town houses or high rise buildlings. I supervise site and resident managers. I have 3 properties in Slave Lake which consists of 6 buildings. There are 3 managers and maintenance and cleaning staff.

Last Sunday night when the news came on tv that the fire has started to affect the town of Slave Lake, I was glued to the tv to figure out whether we still have properties there or not. Monday morning I had to try and made sure all the staff are accounted for and safe. It was amazing that I paged one of them and she managed to take her pager with her. That afternoon, I only had one staff unaccounted and before I got ready to go home, I finally got a hold of him. That made me feel good.  By Tuesday, we had confirmation that one of the buildings has been leveled.

I started to get calls from residents and was trying to calm them down, Some of them I know because they at times would call me. It is hard to hear them and know the situation they were in. All day Tuesday, I was processing the return of their Security deposits and refund of this month's rent. I had to make sure that it was done right away as they only had minutes to evacuate and most did not or could not take things with them. At times like this, consideration, compassion and understanding are life's values we need to have. This afternoon a few had managed to get to the office to pick up cheques or have called to give forwarding addresses.

I still have no idea how the other 5 buildings are, though we had reports they are still standing but whether they are habitable or not, we will not know for weeks. 50% of the town is gone.

My prayers and thoughts are with those residents who are in evacuation centres. The outpouring of support has been incredible. The best news is that nobody lost their life.