All Residents Evacuated From Churchill Falls

People from Churchill Falls woke up in a different town after theirs was evacuated because of a forest fire which shifted suddenly last night and became a safety threat.

A long line of traffic headed out over the Trans Labrador Highway last night, most making their way eastward to Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

The YMCA was opened up for evacuees with just over 500 people registering there.

The town asked its residents last night to stay off the streets in the evening hours in order to allow municipal personnel to better handle the influx of people.

The YMCA itself is closed to the public but the daycare will be open to the public today.

Fire Chief Brad Butler says it was a little difficult handling the influx, partly because it was nighttime, but all went well.

He says residents had to be out of Churchill Falls by 8:15 p.m. on Wednesday so they set up a checkpoint at the entrance to Route 510.

Perry Trimper

MHA Perry Trimper says it was a real light show last night with thunderstorms which began in the afternoon, causing everything to shift.

There was a real escalation in temperature and the change in winds just added to everything, so we quickly had to figure out where we were going to put everybody.”

NL Hydro says about 750 people were in Churchill Falls, including contractors. A small crew of personnel will remain at the generating station in Churchill Falls.

Making the current situation worse is an outage affecting some customers in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

The outage is a planned out to allow teams to repair a power line in the area. Hydro is hoping to have the power back at 11 a.m.

Hydro teams have been working closely with provincial officials as well as the Canadian Red Cross and the town of Happy Valley-Goose Bay to ensure that employees and other residents are safe.