| Wayne's World ~ Trouble on the home front |
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| Local Content - Local News |
| Written by Wayne Litke |
| Monday, 23 January 2012 21:13 |
| I was shocked on Saturday to learn that a large sawmill where I worked as a teenager had exploded and burned the night before. Two men were still missing and presumed dead when this column was penned and many more were being treated for serious burns. Nineteen of 30 people who were on the clean-up crew were injured. If the explosion had occurred on the day shift when production was under way the number of casualties would have been significantly higher. With local emergency and hospital facilities overwhelmed, assistance was enlisted from every nearby town. It must have been organized chaos, and it certainly would have been a harrowing experience for health care providers and relatives of injured workers as they tried to locate and determine the condition of loved ones. Accounts of how the victims were on fire and screaming as they tried to escape from the complex definitely left my mind with some frightening images of the catwalks that I walked on in the late 1970s. My heart goes out to the victims and their families. Due to the fact that the firefighters ran out of water, the fire continued to burn through the night making the site too hot to search for the missing men. Meanwhile, their families under went a gut-wrenching wait hoping that a search would begin as soon as possible. However, two days after the explosion, the site was too dangerous and a search could not begin until a structural assessment had been completed by an engineer. A final go-ahead had to be given by outside agencies, presumably the provincial natural gas utility and occupational health and safety officials. A natural gas leak may have been the cause of the accident since workers on an earlier shift reportedly smelled the substance. I believe the Babine Forest Products sawmill began operation in 1975 or 1976. It has been a major employer ever since. It was only a few miles from where I grew up and back in the day unofficially produced more lumber than its design specifications. It employed approximately 250 people and was the main employer in the community of 3,600 people. Estimates of a new mill costing anywhere from $25 million to $100 million is not good news at a time when the area is dealing with the aftermath of a mountain pine beetle infestation that has decimated forests. I suspect the lives of many people and families will change dramatically as they struggle to deal with ongoing payments, debt and a lack of employment options. I think a lot of us can relate to that after mad cow disease was discovered in Canadian cattle in 2003 and led to a crisis that closed exports to the States and foreign markets. It was a very difficult time for rural folks in Saskatchewan and Alberta, and a similar scenario will now play out at Burns Lake. It is estimated that at least one-third of the town’s income is linked to the sawmill that may or may not be rebuilt. On a more positive note, a Manitoba couple with links to Maple Creek were big winners last week. They won a court case in Texas successfully evicting two people who had illegally moved into their winter home. Lee and Inez Harrison are the grandparents of Christine Goett who drew the story to my attention. Her snowbird grandparents decided last year to sell their mobile home in Donna, Texas. They gave permission to a friend to give the house keys to a couple who were considering purchasing their getaway home. The couple gave the Harrisons a $2,500 deposit to hold the property and then moved in without their knowledge. Shortly after, the Harrisons received a phone call from a neighbour in Texas informing them that their possessions were being sold at a garage sale in front of their mobile home. The Manitoba owners (both in their 70s) had not signed a contract or made a deal with the prospective buyers, yet they could not evict them. An exhausting battle to have the home invaders removed began in November, 2011, The couple said they had a verbal agreement to live in the trailer, and then claimed squatters' rights to the property. The court ruled the Harrisons could keep the $2,500 deposit and gave the squatters two weeks to move out. Meanwhile, the Harrisons have been staying at a hotel while they tried to reclaim their property. Rest assured, the Harrison’s Texas home will be left in a disastrous state when the squatters finally move out. I am sure $2,500 will not come close to covering the cost of legal fees, damage, clean-up and missing furniture! |
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