Spare a thought for Fort McMurray this week. The city that is the beating heart of Alberta's oil sands industry is still in recovery a year after wildfires breached the thin line between forest and town on May 3, 2016.
The fires consumed or damaged beyond repair 1,595 homes and buildings. The entire population – 90,000 people – had to be evacuated in a matter of hours. Two people died. The cost is estimated to be close to $4-billion for reconstruction alone, and up to $9-billion when you add lost wages and environmental damages, according to one estimate by Rafat Alam, an economics professor at Edmonton's MacEwan University.
The human cost is just beginning to be measured. Fort McMurray has become a sort of crucible for the study of post-traumatic stress disorder. One University of Alberta survey estimates that 12.8 per cent of the residents suffered PTSD six months after the fire.
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There has also been a spike in claims for people who were hurt by the smoke while fighting the fires or helping with the evacuation, according to data from the Alberta Workers' Compensation Board. Claims for injuries were three times higher in May 2016 than May 2015; three-quarters were related to toxic effects.
Add to this a shortage of workers in non-profit social service organizations, and a shortage of teachers, all related to the fire. Then there is the sharp drop in population – perhaps as many as 5,000 people have left and don't appear to be coming back. And then, of course, the ongoing slump in the price of crude oil.
The rebuilding, the starting over, the worries, the struggle to stay positive – anyone who has been through a personal trauma knows what it's like. Now imagine it for an entire Canadian city.
Some people can only see Fort McMurray in terms of the debate over the propriety of digging carbon out of the ground in 2017. But that misses the human fact. Fort Mac is home to tens of thousands of Canadians and immigrants from around the world, all seeking opportunity. It is a model of diversity and tolerance in spite of the harsh conditions that go with life in northern resource towns.
It will take years for the people of Fort Mac to fully recover. But they will. The next time the price of oil rises, and there is a rush of newcomers looking for good work, they will somehow be ready to receive them, and to make them feel at home.