3 ms·

I returned to Fort McMurray yesterday, after being evacuated a month ago. It was raining. Today the fire is a bit better because of the rain. I'm one of the

by mig39 10y ago

I returned to Fort McMurray yesterday, after being evacuated a month ago. It was raining. Today the fire is a bit better because of the rain. I'm one of the lucky ones. My house is still standing, and there's no damage.

ChuckMcM 10y ago
I cannot imagine how that feels to come back to your house intact. I've wondered ever since an acquaintance of mine, who had a house in the Oakland hills during its fire [1], talked about it. She had come back to her house and it was still standing, and then went on to relate how, for her, it was a mixed blessing. The house was there, and the stuff was there, but everything smelled of smoke (and would for years afterward). Some of her neighbors lost their homes, and a combination of the rebuilding challenges (dealing with insurance, contractors, budgets etc) resulted them in selling their houses and moving away. Some of her neighbors were living in 20 year old houses instead of over 50 year old houses (this was back in 2011). Her neighbors had much better wiring, stronger foundations, and built in home fire sprinkler systems. Things which improved their homes in a number of small but important ways. She said it was the most surreal thing in her life in terms of how she "should" feel, how she "did" feel, and how she thought about and remembered the fire. In 2006 she had upgraded the insulation in the attic to make the house more energy efficient and removing all of the old insulation released a lot of smokey smells again which brought a lot of the scene, the craziness, back. I've thought about that a lot since I talked with her. All through my life my parents and the government has spent time and money telling me to "prepare" for disaster and no money at all telling me how to live "after" disaster. Something that helped her was that she began writing a journal in the days and weeks and months that followed the fire. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991
- derefr 10y ago
  > Some of her neighbors lost their homes, and a combination of the rebuilding challenges ... resulted them in selling their houses and moving away. If this occurred in an urban/suburban environment, it would instantly cause the sort of "shrinking city" problem affecting places like Detroit—suddenly, your house might be the only house on its block, so the viability of delivering power, water, or mail to your lone house (or even keeping the roads maintained around you) would have to be reconsidered as a matter of urban planning. Your house might still be there, but if the city decides to redraw the city limits to exclude it, you may as well give it up as lost anyway—it doesn't have market value any more. On the other hand, if this was a farm—probably then on unincorporated land—a very different set of considerations would be in play, since you (or a co-op you're a part of) would likely own an independent contract for the installation and maintenance of the entire run from the utility to you. On one hand, it would probably end up your responsibility to pay for any repairs to power poles/water mains/etc.—which might be a lot. On the other hand, knowing that, you'd probably have insurance for those "backhauls" for just such occasions. (A lot of farming is risk management of often-volatile commodities. There's a reason the CFTC—the US futures-market regulator—is under the Department of Agriculture.)
  - Retric 10y ago
    The math on this seems wonky as some areas are very low density and still have electric water and sewer. I suspect detroit has problems from poverty and poor management not density. PS: <rant> Underfunded pensions are a huge issue that's often ignored until way to late. People need to sound the alarm at year one when the pension is not at 110% not year 30 when it's way to late. IMO, a company should not be able to have a dividend or stock buy back if their not over 100%. </rant>
  - hackuser 10y ago
    > If this occurred in an urban/suburban environment It happened in Oakland, CA.
redthrowaway 10y ago
Is there any smoke damage? I would imagine that would be incredibly expensive to fix. Glad to hear you're doing well.
- mig39 10y ago
  No smoke damage at all. Last thing I did before leaving was turn off the AC and close all the windows. Some of my neighbours weren't so lucky -- some have a lot of smoke in the house, so have to replace or clean some furniture and have walls cleaned. Still, even that's nothing compared to completely losing a house. I lost power for a total of 20 minutes through the whole thing. My video surveillance system kept running throughout the evacuation, and I could VPN into my house and check on things.
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    Wow, what could you check? Presumably a video feed told you if on fire/ not on fire. That's one stressful check to be making.

by mig39 10y ago

ChuckMcM 10y ago

I cannot imagine how that feels to come back to your house intact. I've wondered ever since an acquaintance of mine, who had a house in the Oakland hills during its fire [1], talked about it. She had come back to her house and it was still standing, and then went on to relate how, for her, it was a mixed blessing. The house was there, and the stuff was there, but everything smelled of smoke (and would for years afterward). Some of her neighbors lost their homes, and a combination of the rebuilding challenges (dealing with insurance, contractors, budgets etc) resulted them in selling their houses and moving away. Some of her neighbors were living in 20 year old houses instead of over 50 year old houses (this was back in 2011). Her neighbors had much better wiring, stronger foundations, and built in home fire sprinkler systems. Things which improved their homes in a number of small but important ways. She said it was the most surreal thing in her life in terms of how she "should" feel, how she "did" feel, and how she thought about and remembered the fire. In 2006 she had upgraded the insulation in the attic to make the house more energy efficient and removing all of the old insulation released a lot of smokey smells again which brought a lot of the scene, the craziness, back. I've thought about that a lot since I talked with her. All through my life my parents and the government has spent time and money telling me to "prepare" for disaster and no money at all telling me how to live "after" disaster. Something that helped her was that she began writing a journal in the days and weeks and months that followed the fire. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991

derefr 10y ago
> Some of her neighbors lost their homes, and a combination of the rebuilding challenges ... resulted them in selling their houses and moving away. If this occurred in an urban/suburban environment, it would instantly cause the sort of "shrinking city" problem affecting places like Detroit—suddenly, your house might be the only house on its block, so the viability of delivering power, water, or mail to your lone house (or even keeping the roads maintained around you) would have to be reconsidered as a matter of urban planning. Your house might still be there, but if the city decides to redraw the city limits to exclude it, you may as well give it up as lost anyway—it doesn't have market value any more. On the other hand, if this was a farm—probably then on unincorporated land—a very different set of considerations would be in play, since you (or a co-op you're a part of) would likely own an independent contract for the installation and maintenance of the entire run from the utility to you. On one hand, it would probably end up your responsibility to pay for any repairs to power poles/water mains/etc.—which might be a lot. On the other hand, knowing that, you'd probably have insurance for those "backhauls" for just such occasions. (A lot of farming is risk management of often-volatile commodities. There's a reason the CFTC—the US futures-market regulator—is under the Department of Agriculture.)
- Retric 10y ago
  The math on this seems wonky as some areas are very low density and still have electric water and sewer. I suspect detroit has problems from poverty and poor management not density. PS: <rant> Underfunded pensions are a huge issue that's often ignored until way to late. People need to sound the alarm at year one when the pension is not at 110% not year 30 when it's way to late. IMO, a company should not be able to have a dividend or stock buy back if their not over 100%. </rant>
- hackuser 10y ago
  > If this occurred in an urban/suburban environment It happened in Oakland, CA.

redthrowaway 10y ago

Is there any smoke damage? I would imagine that would be incredibly expensive to fix. Glad to hear you're doing well.

mig39 10y ago
No smoke damage at all. Last thing I did before leaving was turn off the AC and close all the windows. Some of my neighbours weren't so lucky -- some have a lot of smoke in the house, so have to replace or clean some furniture and have walls cleaned. Still, even that's nothing compared to completely losing a house. I lost power for a total of 20 minutes through the whole thing. My video surveillance system kept running throughout the evacuation, and I could VPN into my house and check on things.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  Wow, what could you check? Presumably a video feed told you if on fire/ not on fire. That's one stressful check to be making.