Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 45

INSIGHT SATURDAY. APRIL 29. 2017 EDMONTON JOURNAL D9 77 ft i i f-v Dalia Abdellatif volunteered at the Emergency Relief Services centre within hours of hearing of the Fort McMurray evacuation, shaughn butts ur largest humanitarian domestic response since World War Volunteers drawn from across North America join dedicated local team he -r zZ. The Red Cross response to Fort McMurray was its largest humanitarian domestic response since the Second World War. The organization raised roughly $323 million.

BREAKDOWN $189M came from Canadians. $104M came in matching funds from the federal government $30lflcame in matching funds from the provincial government Total: $323M THE MONEY HAS BEEN ALLOCATED AS FOLLOWS: $231M to support individuals and families $50Mto support community initiatives $30Mto eligible small businesses future disaster planning and preparation cost of fundraising, not to exceed five per cent of money donated by the public OTHER RED CROSS STATISTICS TIED TO THE FIRE: 10,900 plane and bus tickets booked to help people return home 3 7,700 cleanup kits distributed to returning residents 11,900 families received housing support, including assistance for rent, mortgage and utilities, plus other household goods 1,950 families received interim lodging in Fort McMurray, Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer and other Alberta communities 126,468 electronic fund transfers provided direct financial assistance to help residents meet individual needs 147,000 calls received by 13 call centres to assist evacuated people 65,000 families registered to receive support 2,500 cots and 3,000 blankets, plus 2,800 hygiene kits distributed to eight evacuation shelters in Edmonton, Calgary and Lac La Biche. When Fort McMurray residents were forced to leave their homes, Red Cross volunteer Jennifer Schoenberger swung into action, greg soutbam 11' she did was draw a floor plan, then she set up at the reception desk an just got to work. Everybody wanted to help. sent over shopping carts.

Home Depot dropped off cardboard boxes that could be packed with donations. Abdellatif left the distribution centre at 11 p.m., and was back early in the morning to open up, sleeping just a few hours in between. "But I wasn't tired. I was fresh. When you see other people volunteering and doing all this work, it felt like I was doing nothing." Abdellatif said at least 500 of the centre's volunteers worked each and every day from the beginning of the crisis to the point that the Target distribution centre closed on July 30, 2016.

Cindi Hache, the organization's executive director, said her organization received a $45,000 grant from the Red Cross to help with expenses, which included feeding volunteers. I haven't seen that amount of volunteers willingto help. Whenever I remember, I just cry," said Abdellatif. LIANE FAULBER Organized chaos. That's how Ed-montonian Jennifer Schoenberger rcmembers the Expo Centre one year ago, when she found herself among 84 local volunteers for the Red Cross assembled to do whatever they could to help.

Wearingthe signature red vest so identified with the international relief agency, Schoenbcrger helped to house the most vulnerable among the Fort McMurray evacuees. That included pregnant women, the elderly andanyone else who wouldn't be able to sleep on a cot among more than 2,000 displaced people. "I'm not sure you could accurately describe it to anyone who wasn't there," said Schoenberger, who has served at numerous local emergencies, from large-scale apartment fires to small-scale floods. "There were just people everywhere, waiting to be assessed, waitingto findout where theycould put their heads down. They were exhausted, hungry in all stages of grief It was such an emotional roller-coaster." The Red Cross was one of many local charitable and helping agencies that surged into action in Edmonton on or about May 3, 2016.

Groups from the United Way to the Edmonton HumaneSociety rallied to help tens of thousands of" Fort McMurray evacuees. "My Red Cross Alberta team, it was all hands on deck," said Jenn McManus, vice-president, Alberta and N.W.T., for Red Cross Canada "We activated and deployed over 3,200 personnel from May 3 to now. This is officially our largest humanitarian domestic response since World War 1 1." Red Cross volunteers came to Edmonton from across Canada and the United States to pitch in. Other local agencies also made contributions, though sometimes on amore modest scale in keeping with their specific mandates. The United Way of the Alberta Capital Region, for instance, is not traditionally a disaster service organ ization.

Bu i distributed 1,300 backpacks full of pencils and paper to Fort McMurray students goingto school in Edmonton so theycould enter new classrooms with supplies. The agency is also now sitting on a planning committee charged with disbursing funds gathered by the Red Cross that continue to flow into Fort McMurray to support the rebuilding of the community. The Edmonton Food Bank also was pressed in to service andfound itself overwhelmed on at least one fron by donation from the public. Executive director Marjorie Bencz recalled eight semi-trailers full of bottled water arrived, and bottled water isn't something they even worry about carrying at the Food Bank. Two semi-trailers' worth is still in storage.

Bencz said her organization was "hithard" providingfood toevacua-tion centres both insideandoutside Edmonton. But the biggest strain at the food bank was on its hamper program. In May 2016, likely in response to Edmontonianshavingmore guests staying with them from Fort McMurray, hamper usage spiked. In May 2015, the food bank distributed 15,773 hampers. In May 2016, that number was 23,681.

But Edmontonians were "good to us and generous in terms of food and money," in response to Fort Murray birds are still at Meika's Safehouse both cockatiels that arrived separately, and then "fell in love," as Couture said. Now the birdsare devoted toeach other and Couture can't imagine finding a home for one without the other. Meika's Safehouse is just one of the animal care centres in Edmonton that went into overdrive the first week of May 2016 when the move began to evacuate 90,000 Fort McMurray residents and their pets. Some petsescaped with their families. But many were left behind, and were rescued by rk-ers from the Fort McMurray SPCA, who sent them south.

"The first group came on a hog trailer, dogs and cats in crates Some 400 animals in the first shipment," recalled Roland Lines, communications manager for the Alberta SPCA (ASPCA). The ASPCA coordinated the animal support component of the disaster relief, set ting up a care centre for pets in an empty big-box store in the Nexus Business Park, near 112 Street and 118 Av McMurray, said Bencz. She noted that the Red Cross has committed to provide funding relief for food costs the food bank incurred outside of" Edmonton, but the has yet to arrive. DaliaAbdellahfisnowapaidsup-port worker at Edmonton Emergency Relief Services (EERS). But at the time of the fire, she was a volunteer one of hundreds who threw themselves into the effort.

She remembered arriving at the EERS warehouse on 104 Street downtown shortly after the evacuation was announced, and seeing lineups down the street and around the corner. There were hundreds of people who either needed help or wanted to drop off donations. Achain of peoplepassed boxes of donated items into the warehouse, which was filled and emptied more than once. After a few days, the City of Edmonton secured a temporary space for EERS to use as a don ation distribution centre for new items a former Target store at Kingsway Mall. Abdellatif, 40, a new Canadian who moved from Egypt five years ago, found herself in charge of or-ganizingthat centre.

The first thing enue. There, pets were received, assessed and cared for, and then collected by owners or sent to other shelters including Meika's Safehouse and the Edmonton Humane Society (EHS). Lines says the ASPCA took in about 1,200 animals at Nexus, including 548 cats, 81 dogs, 66 rabbits, 159 reptiles and six crabs. Owners claimed 1,084 pets, and surrendered 36. Twenty-eight pets (mostly fish and reptiles) died.

Forty-four pets were unclaimed at the time the Nexus shelter closed on June 30, 2016, and were sen to other shelters for care. In the end, 97 per cent of the sheltered animals made their way back to owners. For its part, the EIIS, which sits on the committee responsible for Edmonton's municipal disaster relief plan, sent some 50 volunteers each day to the Nexus centre to help care for the animals. The EI IS itself housed 250 exotic pets from Fort Mc urray, incl udi ngbearded dragons, frogs, butterflies, snakes and tarantulas. Amid the chaos, places of sanctuary emerged for people and their pets Meika's Safehouse operators Janine Couture, left, and Ian Sprague cared for 127 birds during the 2016 Fort McMurray evacuation, larry wong LIANE FAULDER Janine Couture remembers the first Fort McMurray evacuees that arrived at her bird shelter.

It was a few days after the northern evacuation had begun, and they came with an African grey parrot. "Their truck, it was covered in ash and soot. Their windshield wipers were melted to the windshield, and the bird smellcd like a campfirc," recalled Couture, who, along with her husband, Ian Sprague, runs Meika's Safe-house in Sherwood Park. The African grey was amongl27 birds from Fort McMurray sheltered by Couture; and Sprague after the birds' owners fled the lire, and there was no place for the birds to slay. In total, Meika's Safehouse actually the main floor of the home of Sprague and Couture, who live in the basement -sheltered about 200 birds in May, including the birds they regularly babysit, rescue and provide for adoption.

Today, only two of the Fort Mc "I was the most exotics I've ever seen in the shelter," said Miranda Jordan-Smith, EIIS chief executive. "One, a monitor lizard, was so huge, about nine pounds, that we had to create a special cage for him." Some $200,000 in donations came to EHS at the lime of the fire. About $50,000 was put toward the cost of keeping the pets during the crisis at the local shelter, located at 13620 163 St. The surplus, $150,000, was given in the form of a cheque to the Fort McMurray SPCA in November 2016. Another key role by the EIIS during the evacuation was to supply volunteers to different shelters.

They walked and fed pets, cleaned kennels and brought pets forward to be reunited with owners. EHS also gave pet supplies to anyone who identified themselves as from Fort McMurray and in need of support. The Alberta SPCA received $370,000 in donations connected to the Fort McMurray fire, incl ud-ing the cost of two-months rent at the Nexus centre $74,000 donated back to the ASPCA by the building's owner. The ASPCA distributed $80,000 worth of donations toeight of their partners in thcreseuecfTortincludingMeika's Safehouse and the EIIS. The EHS, along with a handful of other Alberta animal welfare agencies including the Alberta SPCA, received a group award in April from the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies for their exemplary work after the fire.

One oft he agencies was Meika's Safehouse..