Bonnyville has Not been asked to take in Evacuees at this Time

With a high hotel vacancy rate, as well as, vacancies at local work camps, Bonnyville Regional Fire Authority (BRFA) will be passing on numbers of rooms in the town available, should evacuees need a place to stay. There are also local hotels, such as Microtel, who have offered a select number of rooms, for free, to evacuees. With that being said, Mayor Gene Sobolewski says the Town has not been asked to take in evacuees, nor are they at this time.

Having just left a joint meeting between the Municipal District (MD) of Bonnyville and the Town, Mayor Sobolewski explains, “because the province pays for [evacuees], the province is the one that will be directing people. What we’ve and what I’ve said to [Lac La Biche County Mayor] Omar (Moghrabi) is that we have availability.”

Fire Chief for BRFA, Brian McEvoy states, “the Town and the MD of Bonnyville is complying a list of available of housing accommodations, in the area, that are available should they be needed for the evacuees.” Any evacuees that are in Bonnyville have chosen to come to town, to stay with family/friends or other, they have not been directed to come from Emergency Management. “At this time we have put our teams on alert, but have not activated them, pending a request from the province.”

“We’re going to be sending the province the number of rooms we have, and if the province wants to send people our way, they will.” Mayor Sobolewski wants to make it clear that outside of any promotions local hotels are doing, the Town is not offering free rooms for evacuees. “We have rooms available, if someone is an evacuee and cannot get a room, we have rooms. They’ll probably have to pay for them.”

“Bonnyville and the MD is providing them with our [vacancy] numbers and the provincial Emergency Operations Centre will determine what to do,” states Mayor Sobolewski.

If you would like to support the Fort McMurray fire efforts, the Redcross requests that you do NOT donate items. Further, people are not to attempt to enter the evacuee centre or highways leading out of Fort McMurray. People are asked to donate CASH to the Redcross. You can do that via text message, “redcross” to 30333.