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
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