fascinatinghorror

The Mississauga Miracle

Added 2022-12-27 11:15:00 +0000 UTC

This was a surprisingly enjoyable story to research. Not that the event was enjoyable, at all, but there are lots of vivid and interesting accounts available online to draw from. Here are two sources that I found particularly interesting.

The wedding reception

This piece starts with an account of a wedding reception in nearby Toronto on the night of the disaster. The bride and her guests noticed a red glow in the sky, and knew that something big had happened… but weren’t sure exactly what.

It was only really the next day, when guests turned up at lunch in the same clothes they’d been wearing the night before, that they realised just how serious the disaster had been.

Thankfully, because nobody died, the bride and groom don’t seem to mind sharing the date of their wedding with a massive catastrophe!

Public response to evacuation

This very detailed report covers the evacuation, with a particular focus on the public response to it. It has lots of interesting data, including where people went, and what influenced their decisions.

It also features a few accounts of specific evacuees, looking at the difficulties they had, and what route they took out of danger (or, in some cases, why they stayed where they were).

The reason I enjoyed this source so much is that it does a really good job of showing how complex an evacuation can be. It’s not just a case of telling people to leave – you have to make sure they know why, and how urgent it is, and take account of all sorts of factors that influence behaviour: security, the weather, children, elderly relatives, pets, etc, etc.