The last time anyone checked into Fort McMurray’s Radisson Hotel was hours before the wildfire dubbed “the beast” moved into the community.
After more than four months of cleaning and repairs, it will finally re-open Monday.
“You have to move the furniture, clean the furniture, clean the entire bathroom, amenities, air conditioning,” said Jean-Marc Guillamot of the Fort McMurray Hotel Group.
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On May 3, just across Highway 63, it was another hotel that first caught fire.
In no time, the flames grew into an inferno that completely engulfed the Super 8 hotel.
An ember from the blaze at the Super 8 landed on the Radisson, sparking a fire that first consumed the restaurant, then moved to some of the hotel rooms.
“That’s when the water bombers came and just smacked the restaurant, you know, and saved the hotel,” Guillamot said.
Most Fort McMurray businesses are back open, but many of those in the service industry aren’t back to operating at 100 per cent.
At the downtown Earls, the lounge is full for lunch, but the dining room is closed because of a shortage of servers.
Executive chef and co-owner Stu Wigle believes many of the people who lived in the community still haven’t returned.
“Without there actually being residents here, we can’t draw from any population because nobody’s flying into Fort McMurray to work,” Wigle said. “It was the local population that really fed into the restaurants and hospitality industry and we just don’t have them yet.”
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Wigle hopes to be back up to normal in a few weeks, but he knows other small businesses will continue to struggle.
If there’s an upside, it’s that hotels were struggling to fill rooms after oil prices plunged. Now many are almost full–but it’s not necessarily the business they had hoped for.
“I mean, everyone is trying his best,” Guillamot explained. “You know, we’re writing the book on such a disaster.”
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