“It was like ‘The Walking Dead,’ if you watch that,” he said.
“It was like something out of the apocalypse. It was just like Armageddon.”
The Corner Brook native and Fort McMurray resident, where he and his wife Candice work at Keyano College, spoke of entering a gym around noon on Tuesday, with all still appearing to be somewhat normal. An hour later, not so much.
“I’ve never seen fires like that before,” said the son of Ann and Don, the latter of whom is a former city firefighter. “It was insane.”
It was at that moment he realized the wildfires he assumed were being contained were anything but. He quickly reached his wife, then they picked up sons Nathaniel, 14, and Kaleb, 11, and headed home to grab a few items in anticipation of the situation escalating. There was a voluntary evacuation in place at the time, but nothing like what was about to go down.
From their home in the Wood Buffalo area of Fort McMurray, they headed to Crossley’s brother-in-law’s place just five kilometres away. Due to already congested roadways, the drive took a couple of hours.
Upon arrival, they tried to calm their nerves by watching a hockey game, which was interrupted about an hour in by the last thing they wanted to see — a mandatory evacuation notice from the Emergency Alert System.
“We basically bolted,” he said.
Not knowing which way to go, due to conflicting radio repots on whether north or south was the best option, Crossley and his family, along with three or four vehicles of other family members and friends, simply waited in an area of town where either could be a quick decision. When they heard the south highway had opened, they chose that as their route and “gunned it.”
What greeted them was, as Crossley called it, “mayhem.”
Abandoned cars with the interiors burned and black. Houses, hotels and other buildings they all recognized, ravaged with flames.
“I’ve never in my life been more scared,” Crossley said, noting the impact it must have had on his young sons.
“To see places that you know … there’s nothing you can do.”
And that was only when they could actually see anything. Other times, the dark smoke was too thick to see any more than 10 feet in front of them. Onward they went, through the heat and the ash, silently hoping nothing unseen would suddenly fall on their vehicle.
After driving through the town of Athabasca, which was full, they lucked into a hotel room in a small place called St. Albert, just outside of Edmonton.
It was there — safe — that Crossley spoke to The Western Star on Wednesday night.
“I’m at a loss for words in some aspects,” he said. “And the words don’t do it justice until you see it live.”
He compared Fort McMurray to Corner Brook, saying it would be like if a fire ignited near Grenfell, swept down through Margaret Bowater Park, then over by the Glynmill Inn and all the way up through the Townsite area — wiping out everything in its path.
He’s already heard of some co-workers losing their homes, and of course, the inevitable rumours of so many more.
Nobody knows when they can go back home — or if there will even be a home.
Crossley and his crowd will head to Edmonton today to stay at a condo a family friend rents out that happened to be empty. And that’s where they’ll remain until they hear something.
A state of emergency was declared Wednesday, after an estimated 1,600 buildings and homes were destroyed and approximately 80,000 people had evacuated. Crossley believes that declaration should have come days ago.
For now, all he can really do is brace for the worst, but hope for the best.
His main source of solace is that he hasn’t heard anything. The old ‘No news is good news’ adage his mother has been known to say.
He has an alarm system installed in his home, so he has been monitoring it closely. If anything happens structurally, he’d get a notification. So far, sweet silence.
“That’s my only comfort,” he said. “That little peace of mind … it’s not done yet.”
