Our House

10 >> OUR HOUSE FALL 2017 Dominion LenDing Centres PHotos Courtesy oF CHArLene eLLiott FOUNDATION it and go back through town to the south. At 9:30 p.m., the family crossed back into Fort mcmurray amid rumours the fire had taken out much of the city's major structures. the smoke was so thick, she could only see a few inches in front of her car. An hour later reesik got a call from a friend. "she said, 'i'm really sorry, your home is gone,' and began to cry," reesik recalls. "i said, 'it's oK.' i knew in my belly it was gone at 5:30. i just had this overwhelming sense that it was gone. i really thought when i looked at the city in the rearview mirror, i would never be back because there would be nothing to come back to." nine hours later, the family was reunited in Lac La Biche, a couple of hundred kilometres south, where they would call a camper home for the next two months. "you felt as though you had cheated death," she says. But reesik also knew her family had every intention to rebuild. Fortunately, she and husband had purchased the right amount of insurance for the home and their mortgage. they used their insurance to keep paying the mortgage and minimized their spending until robin was able to return to work. When it was time to rebuild, they also relied on their mortgage provider to help them get a construction mortgage and find the right contractors to do the work properly. the family has been renting a home in the meantime, but plans to move back to their new home this fall. "We had so much we had built up and our lives together, we wanted it back," she says. "i wanted my kids to see i was oK despite it all, and they would be oK despite it all." the reesiks had also purchased replacement insurance, which means in the end, they would not be out of pocket for the entire ordeal. T uesday, may 3, 2016, isn't a day Lisa reesik will soon forget. it started out beautifully, without a single cloud in the blue northern Alberta sky. While there was a wildfire burning outside Fort mcmurray, a city of more than 80,000, it wasn't a major concern for residents like reesik. that day, the mother of two went to work and carried on business as usual. even as she went to lunch with co-workers, there was no sign of what was to come. But by 1 p.m. the sky over the town turned ugly, quickly. From downtown, reesik could see the smoke swallowing up Abasand and Beacon Hill, the neighbourhoods her family of four called home for 16 years. "it was like something out of a movie," she tells Our House magazine. "there was smoke, but you knew there were flames." When word came the fire jumped the Athabasca river that bisects the city, reesik left work and headed for home to pack what she could. she grabbed a few documents and a garbage bag full of clothes for her kids and husband and headed to her brother's place to meet up with the rest of the family. As she left her home, she prayed the blaze wouldn't take out her aunt's house, which was much closer to the conflagration. eventually her entire extended family met up and headed north out of the city for safety. reesik's husband, robin, who worked for the energy company suncor, was evacuated to the south of Fort mcmurray. But there was no way out to the north so, not feeling safe, the family decided to make a break for The Means RebUIlD TO

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