In a press conference, Hay River Mayor Kandis Jameson, addressed some key issues regarding the status of the evacuation process regarding individuals who chose to remain in the town after evacuation orders were issued early this week.
Currently, communication infrastructure remains down in Hay River due to damage caused by wildfires leading to little online communication to Hay River residents.
“Our biggest concern right now is that we have no means of communication,” Jameson says.
Lack of internet, alongside zero major resources available in town, has led to major problems for anyone remaining in the area.
“There’s no gas, no food, no health, no pharmacy in town, people need to understand that if they get in trouble or they need help they have no way of contacting anybody that could help them,” the Mayor says.
“We have no hospital, we do have medics in the community to help first responders, however if the people who are still in the community need help it takes it away from our people that have to be here.”
“If things change and this fire starts running at our community we have no way to let people know… no way to let people know and I can’t stress that enough,” she adds.
According to Mayor Jameson, the number of residents who chose to stay put in Hay River is significant and ‘disappointing.’
“Quite honestly I’m estimating about 500 people [remaining in Hay River],” Jameson says.
“Speaking from the heart I’m very disappointed, and I say that cautiously because I know there are so many people that have left and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
“It really is life threatening to be here, and it’s life threatening to my first responders if I have to pull them off, and I just don’t know how if something went sideways with somebody in the community if there was an emergency how they would contact us because we are scrambling to try and get information to my team,” she adds.
