Moraine Lake, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

Captain Rick : Moraine Lake is a glacially-fed lake in Banff National Park, 14 kilometers (8.7 mi) from the Village of Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada. Banff National Park, in the breath-taking Canadian Rockies, is one of the most beautiful and most visited parks in the world. The emerald color of the water comes from rock flour carried into the lake by melt-water from the glaciers  on the surrounding mountains that overlook the lake.

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Heather Rankin, Canadian curler & author of hit YouTube video ‘For Alberta-Love Echoes’ presents her story of the 2013 Alberta Floods

Captain Rick: The 2013 floods in Alberta were historic. Heather Rankin’s ‘For Alberta-Love Echoes’ hit video on YouTube excellently displays Alberta’s outpouring of love in a massive volunteer effort during and after the floods to help their neighbors recover from a disaster that took lives, created billions in damage and will take years to recover from.

After I presented Heather’s video in my July 7 ANJ report: Love echoes in Alberta after historic flooding I was able to link up and asked her if she would consent to telling her story on ATRIDIM NEWS JOURNAL. She replied “Sure go for it”.

About Heather Rankin

I asked Heather to contribute a photo and tell us a bit about herself. Heather contributed the above photo and replied “I am a recently retired professional curler here in Canada at the precipice of moving into coaching once my 6 year old boy gets a little older. It is truly the story of who I am as it is a sport I have competed and excelled here in Canada for well over 30 years and it has allowed me to meet many Canadians and Americans on my travels around the globe playing a sport I love. As for other labels, I am a business analyst and project management consultant presently working on Operational Excellence at a large oil and gas company. My specialization is software engineering and data, which is a very linear left brain profession (and let’s admit it boring), so I like to supplement my day job with many creative endeavors like trying to capture the way love echoes throughout our world, the art of Qigong, and the beauty of nature and hiking. I have love (ai) tattooed on my left arm in mandarin Chinese, to remind me to be and spread love everyday in every way. My son and Australian Labradoodle puppy help me to see the echo of love and to watch life unfold through their eyes is enchanting. How he gets lost in a moment of play with his cars, watching the boy with dog explore and discover the wonder of nature and each other, and the joyful way he makes best friends everywhere he goes by smiling and saying hi (now that is the best echo).”

I asked Heather to share her special thoughts. She replied “I want the story and movie to be the focus not so much me. Thank you again for showing the world the greatness that lives in Canada and more specifically our wondrous beautiful province of Alberta. Come on up y’all, we are open :)”

Guest Commentary

by

Heather Rankin

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

“For Alberta – Love Echoes”

Thanks Captain Rick for focusing the video I made for the people, first responders, city workers, and all those affected by the Flood in Alberta, Canada. It was so shocking for many reasons to live through this emergency in the province and city of Calgary that I call home. For those that may not know Alberta is the oil and gas backbone of Canada, we are a province of many different types of Canadians coming west for many reasons to make Alberta their home. Many have come in search of money, of a large multi cultural white collar city with many different kinds of experiences and jobs, some have come to live a western lifestyle, for education, for sports and training for the Olympics (as we hosted the 88 Olympics and a lot of our training places are located here), or to live in the beauty of vast open spaces, wildlife and the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains. Others have grown up here with the Alberta engrained ethics of family first, hard work and play even harder which you adopt when you move in. To see the beauty of our land devastated, our infrastructures collapsing and our homes ruined destroyed much for us Albertans including our innocence and armour that we have it all. What grew out of this devastation was such intense love, family, hard work and the reminder that we are more than what we have accomplished but that we are the sum of our parts. It showed that the true beauty of Alberta is the beauty of the people, from a mayor who managed the event with a classic style of love, sense of humour and dedication that made everyone feel safe despite the walls falling down around us, to the hard working dedicated fearless caring first responders to the souls who opened their doors to people in need. Did you know that 120,000 people were evacuated from their homes but only 1500 ended up in evacuation centres, the rest were put up by people opening their homes to complete strangers. Did you also know that the downtown core of a city of 1.2 million people was closed, had no power or lights for 5 days and we had no crime, no looting and no deaths. Did you know that the City had to stop people from volunteering and helping because it was too dangerous. They asked for 100 volunteers and 30,000 showed up. Once people were allowed back in their homes to see devastation and didn’t know where to start, groups of hundreds of Albertans showed up and knocked on doors of complete strangers homes with a smile and a shovel and stayed for days in mud, heat, mosquito and sewage invested waters helping people they did not know recover. Did you know the Greatest Outdoors Show on Earth is on right now as I type and the complete facility was 10 feet under water for a week just 10 days ago. The Calgary Stampede is an event that stands for Alberta. It shows pride, family, the cowboy work ethic and the joy that our people have in their hearts to survive, succeed, live, love and laugh. Some from afar have criticized why we would go forward with the Stampede, but it has never not been held, wars, depression, nothing has stopped it and the people of Calgary wanted it to go on to celebrate after all these hardships, come hell or high water (the motto of this year’s stampede).

I hope my movie depicted the depth of the disaster, it will cost Alberta billions of dollars and 10 years to get back to where we were. I also hope it depicts loud and clear the strength of our people, the resilience, the belief we have in the process, the faith we have in each other, the sense of humour that Canadians often show the world as being part of who we are and how we roll and of most importance that we are all connected, we are one energy, one formidable humanity that when powered by love we can do anything.

Please share and show how the Love Echoes…… Thank you for showing the World Captain Rick.

Heather Rankin

View Heather’s video in my previous report: Love echoes in Alberta after historic flooding

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Associated ATRIDIM NEWS JOURNAL Report Categories:

Canada

Disasters of our World

Guest Commentary

Historic Events

Love echoes in Alberta after historic flooding

Captain Rick: An abundance of love echoed across Alberta Canada during the historic flooding in late June as people worked together to survive and recover. This 10 minute YouTube video captures photographic moments of those ‘love echoes’ with excellence.

Receding waters gave way to a mammoth cleanup of affected areas, aided by a spontaneous volunteer campaign in which many home owners were assisted by complete strangers.

Appreciation:

I extend my appreciation to June of Tennessee for sharing this excellent video by Heather Rankin. I invited Heather to share her thoughts on this excellent video masterpiece (which has already been viewed by 50,000 on YouTube) in a comment below.

I extend special appreciation to Sandi of Calgary Alberta for contributing an eyewitness report to my breaking ATRIDIM NEWS JOURNAL Report on June 21, 2013: Historic Flooding in Alberta

2013 Alberta Flood Stats
Worst in Alberta’s history. Areas along the Bow, Elbow, Highwood, Red Deer, Sheep, Little Bow, and South Saskatchewan rivers and their tributaries were particularly affected.
A total of 27 local states of emergency were declared and 28 emergency operations centres were activated as water levels rose and numerous communities were placed under evacuation orders.
Four people were confirmed dead as a direct result of the flooding
Over 100,000 people were displaced throughout the region.
Some 2,200 Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) troops were deployed to help in flooded areas.
Preliminary estimates suggest damage from the flood could be between C$3–5 billion.

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Alberta, Canada: Historic Flooding causes State of Emergency … 75,000 evacuated … 1,200 Canadian Force troops called to help

Captain Rick: Historic flooding is occurring along the Bow River and Elbow River, especially where they join near downtown Calgary Alberta. These rivers originate high in the Canadian Rocky Mountains to the west. Heavy rains of over 100 ml (4 inches) of rain in recent days is the cause of this historic flooding event.

State of Emergency declared
1,200 Canadian Force troops called. 600 are already in Calgary. 600 to arrive by mid afternoon.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper will arrive shortly to survey the destruction. 
75,000 have been evacuated in Calgary.
Trans-Canada Highway 1 is closed west of Calgary, isolating the mountain towns of Banff and Canmore, due to water going over the highway and mudslides in multiple locations.
Unconfirmed reports from Canmore indicate that ‘everything’ was destroyed.

Above: images from Calgary Alberta

Eyewitness report from Sandi of Calgary Alberta

“Fun times happening here. I would be normally at work, but for the first time that I can ever remember, our office down town is shut down due to flooding. State of emergency all over southern Alberta. Many area’s had to evacuate which includes the down town core because of the Bow river being so high that it is almost up to the base of some of the bridges over the river. So access to down town is closed down. Supposed to leave for Fairmont, British Columbia on Sunday for a week, but don’t know if any of the hi ways will be open to be able to get there. Roads washed out all over, mud slides happening, so….who knows. It’s a real mess. So got the day off, but can’t say as it is nice to have the day off under these conditions. I also have so much to do, especially if we do manage to go next week. Oh well, such is life. At least my house is high and away from the river, so good there. Some homes in surrounding towns and different parts of Calgary are flooded right out and a lot of people evacuated. Another Emergency Alert just came over the TV. I remember watching all the flooding in different parts of the world over the last months and thinking how lucky we were that it didn’t really happen too bad here….so much for that thought. Now a sour gas pipeline broke by a smaller town outside Calgary, so that is another problem. Fun times!!”

Citizens of Alberta: I welcome you to share your experiences in the comment section below

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