[DrCaleb]

Fort McMurray convoys begin as evacuees roll through fire-ravaged city

You can bet we'll see video and pictures of the devastation tonight.

[DrCaleb]

Edmonton Muslims host Fort McMurray evacuees

[DrCaleb]

'Tragedy, layered on tragedy': Girl, 15, killed in Fort McMurray evacuation

[andyt]

$1:

Fort McMurray residents face long wait as fire crews 'still have a long way to go'

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/ ... -1.3568035

Man, people are going to be dealing with this for a long time. The lucky ones are the ones that can move back in when the fire is controlled, but even that will take time. The ones who lost their houses, even if they wind up eventually getting an insurance payment, it's going to make a dent in their lives. And the ones without insurance, hate to think about them. How many people will lose their houses because they couldn't work and make the payments? All those little things that people treasure in their lives, lost.

I guess the good thing is we've seen a lot of resilience so far, and people will pull together, maybe create and even closer community. OTOH, having to live in temporary housing for months (years) is going to start being corrosive, especially if there's no work to go to. Drinking/drugs, domestic violence, depression. I wonder what disasters Canada has experienced that are on this scale.

I also wonder what happened to all the drug users I read about in Ft Mac. Hard to get your stuff when you can't find your dealer and have no cash. Are there lots of withdrawal cases showing up?

After that big Tsunami, they were appealing for trauma counselors to go to the region to help out. They should probably put something like that in place here, and quickly.

[DrCaleb]

andyt andyt:

I also wonder what happened to all the drug users I read about in Ft Mac. Hard to get your stuff when you can't find your dealer and have no cash. Are there lots of withdrawal cases showing up?

That has calmed down in recent years. Most plants now do random* testing on employees, so many people either quit drugs or have been fired for use.

*From what I hear, it's not totally random. If you are known to have a problem, if you are reported, or if you obviously smell of alcohol or weed, your odds of being 'randomly' selected increase to 1 in 1. Also, if you operate machinery you are likely to be chosen once per month to be tested. This is with employees only though. Most who work at plant sites are contractors, and contractors have their own policies. The policy WRT contractors by the plants is any violation results in immediate removal from site. And that can be for the whole company, not just a contractor. So companies are rather strict about impairment while on the plant site.

[2Cdo]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

andyt andyt:

I also wonder what happened to all the drug users I read about in Ft Mac. Hard to get your stuff when you can't find your dealer and have no cash. Are there lots of withdrawal cases showing up?

That has calmed down in recent years. Most plants now do random* testing on employees, so many people either quit drugs or have been fired for use.

*From what I hear, it's not totally random. If you are known to have a problem, if you are reported, or if you obviously smell of alcohol or weed, your odds of being 'randomly' selected increase to 1 in 1. Also, if you operate machinery you are likely to be chosen once per month to be tested. This is with employees only though. Most who work at plant sites are contractors, and contractors have their own policies. The policy WRT contractors by the plants is any violation results in immediate removal from site. And that can be for the whole company, not just a contractor. So companies are rather strict about impairment while on the plant site.

That's the policy we see, one guy fucking failing and the entire crew gets barred from ALL the companies sites.

[DrCaleb]

2Cdo 2Cdo:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

andyt andyt:

I also wonder what happened to all the drug users I read about in Ft Mac. Hard to get your stuff when you can't find your dealer and have no cash. Are there lots of withdrawal cases showing up?

That has calmed down in recent years. Most plants now do random* testing on employees, so many people either quit drugs or have been fired for use.

*From what I hear, it's not totally random. If you are known to have a problem, if you are reported, or if you obviously smell of alcohol or weed, your odds of being 'randomly' selected increase to 1 in 1. Also, if you operate machinery you are likely to be chosen once per month to be tested. This is with employees only though. Most who work at plant sites are contractors, and contractors have their own policies. The policy WRT contractors by the plants is any violation results in immediate removal from site. And that can be for the whole company, not just a contractor. So companies are rather strict about impairment while on the plant site.

That's the policy we see, one guy fucking failing and the entire crew gets barred from ALL the companies sites.

In the good old days, we used to play softball in a plant sponsored league. One morning, we noticed one of the company cars still outside Boston Pizza, where we had imbibed a little after a game the night before. That guy was a couple hours late for work. Seems he had gone to drive home, passed out in the car just before he started it. When he woke up, he got a coffee and doughnut at the drive thru, and just drove out to site and worked like normal.

A couple years later, the guidelines said that if a normal sized male had two beers between 7pm and 11pm, he would be considered to be 'impaired' by site standards at 8am the next morning.

Imagine that first incident now?

[BRAH]

The scammers are taking full advantage and the Walmart in Red Deer isn't letting people use their parking lots to collect donations.

[DrCaleb]

I'm not a fan of Walmart, but why is it the manager's responsibility to provide people to help load groceries? No one else gets that consideration. If they want staff to help load, go to Safeway where they do that for you.

[DrCaleb]

On the flip side, I'm hearing all sorts of goodwill from people. Anyone at one of the refugee centers can get a free cab ride to and from it from local cab companies. Many people are opening their homes to others (myself included). There are dentists giving free work to anyone from Fort Mac. There are pet food places giving free pet food to pet owners displaced.

The list goes on and on.

[andyt]

Come on. They couldn't put themselves out a bit to help out? Hell, have the manager ask his employees if any want to volunteer, after work, if he's such a miserable prick.

As for letting people collect donations - don't let em. So many will be scams. Give to the Red Cross and you know where your money is going. And every dollar you give gets tripled by matching funds from the feds and provs. I believe 11 million donated so far.

[DrCaleb]

andyt andyt:

Come on. They couldn't put themselves out a bit to help out? Hell, have the manager ask his employees if any want to volunteer, after work, if he's such a miserable prick.

He's not required to. Like any of us, a sense of civic responsibility is something we have or we don't. There is nothing that says his job as manager requires him to give company labour away for free. There is also nothing stopping him from asking the staff for volunteers to help out. But there is nothing requiring him to do so.

andyt andyt:

As for letting people collect donations - don't let em. So many will be scams. Give to the Red Cross and you know where your money is going.

Agreed there!

[andyt]

No, he's not required to. But people are not required to keep their mouths shut about shaming him and Walmart either. Very poor pr move on his part. And quite likely it's not him that deserves shaming, but the higher ups. The same people who pay their employees so poorly they have to use food stamps in the US, while the owners live in luxury.

[DrCaleb]

andyt andyt:

No, he's not required to. But people are not required to keep their mouths shut about shaming him and Walmart either. Very poor pr move on his part. And quite likely it's not him that deserves shaming, but the higher ups. The same people who pay their employees so poorly they have to use food stamps in the US, while the owners live in luxury.

I'm not reflecting on the company itself. Like I said, I don't much like Walmart, and that Walmart in particular is the closest to me and coincidentally the least likely store I'm going to walk into. But why shame someone for doing their job in accordance with how they are expected to do their job? He has no requirement to help out from a corporate perspective. How do we know that after hours this guy doesn't donate his time to Boy Scouts and Meals on Wheels?

Walmart corporate could give a rats ass about Fort McMurray. I know, because I worked for IBM and helped to set up the Walmart in Fort Mac when it was being built. Blame Walmart, not the manager.

[DrCaleb]

Correction, the store with maternity wear is the least likely I am going to patronize. Walmart is the second least likely.