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By Ashley Lavallee-Koenig, Neil Shewchuk

"ASH WAS COMING DOWN FROM THE SKY"

Jasper resident shares evacuation experience

Jul 31, 2024 | 3:04 PM

On the Alberta Day of Caring for Jasper, a province-wide bottle drive for Jasper evacuees, one resident shares her evacuation experience and gratitude to the community.

Rebecca Meraw is a tour guide at Maligne Lake and takes travellers to Spirit Island to “talk about the natural, cultural and human history in the area.”

She was working a regular day on July 22, and was securing the boats for the night around 7 p.m. Amidst lightning and thunder, she began her drive home, but soon reached an RCMP officer closing the road behind him near Highway 16.

“Just past him you could see the big puff of smoke coming from the transfer station fire, and then when you looked left towards the Ice Fields Parkway, you could see more smoke coming that way. I just immediately knew that this was becoming very real,” says Meraw.

She was fortunately able to reach her home, and her and her boyfriend added as much as they could to their pre-made emergency bags before getting the official evacuation notice around 10:30-11 p.m.

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“Ash was coming down from the sky. It was very dark and smoky already, and we just started packing up our bags and started heading out west towards Valemount to get out.”

Meraw heard about the bottle drive and showed up to make her own donation, where she was moved by the amount of support for her home.

“I think there are so many incredible communities surrounding Jasper. Everybody loves Jasper National Park. It’s a big part of our country and of our province, and it’s somewhere that everyone likes to visit. I’m not really surprised to see all these communities helping Jasper out,” she shares.

Funds raised from the province-wide bottle drive, an effort organized by Pattison Media, will be donated to the Canadian Red Cross. Donations will be matched by both the provincial and federal governments.

Organizers say that as of 2:45 p.m. on July 31, the total raised is at $372,024 Updates can be found here.

“It really warms my heart to see these communities helping my little mountain home,” says Meraw.

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