I fell asleep to the sound of a loon’s eerie call across a rather smoky Frame Lake.
Then I evacuated and the next night, exhausted, I lay in bed looking at three towers all aglow with coloured lights. It felt like I was in a different world or maybe even on a different planet.
It’s the first time in my life I have been an evacuee, an experience I am sharing with a significant portion of the NWT population — I’ve heard it’s over half.
Even though I was tired I couldn’t get to sleep so I just let my mind wander. That’s always an interesting experience because unsupervised, one’s mind can wander to some unusual places.
For some reason, I started thinking about floods and how every time one is shown on the news, they like to show vehicles that have tried to drive though water, stalled and been abandoned. So why don’t vehicles come with a warning on the dash telling people what depth of water the vehicle can drive through?
Your vehicle, if it has a gas or diesel engine, needs air/oxygen to run so it has an air intake and filter. If water gets in there, your engine stops and you have to get the water out before it will start running again. Plus while sitting there, it blocks the road.
With the proper sensors and a little AI, maybe someday the vehicles will simply stop and tell the driver, “Water is too deep and I’m not going any further.”
Vehicles may even have sensors that will tell you where it is safe to park and where it isn’t. Parking under or near big trees during a wind storm is not a great idea.
Maybe vehicles and tires should also have some sort of forest fire rating. They should be able to tell you how much heat they can handle or which makes and models handle excessive heat the best.
Going in the other direction which vehicles and tires handle the cold, ice and snow the best. A few sensors, AI, and rating could make driving a whole lot safer. As my mind was wandering through this, I was watching the buildings slowly change colours. It wasn’t the northern lights but it was pretty in its own right.
Somewhere in there I drifted off to sleep. Ah, the life of an evacuee. In the morning, I woke up and checked the latest news from NNSL Media and Cabin Radio. It is times like these that we need news and information the most. So please support your local news agencies. They are working hard to keep us all informed.
I would suggest everyone keep a little diary or journal of events and expenses. It might come in handy later. Also, stay positive and help each other because that’s what Canadians and Northerners do.
I hope someone makes up T-shirts which say ‘Evacuee! I survived the wildfires of 2023’.
NWT Strong. Stay safe everyone.