“We don’t feel like we’ve been living since this happened,” says a town resident
Raymond Lafontaine built his house 21 years ago. It is full of things that are important to his family.
Pictures of his grandchildren in frames cover the walls. His brother made the stained glass windows in the living room, which looks out over the beautiful water of Lac-Mégantic, Que. On the dresser, there is a single candle with a picture of his son Gaétan on it.
But Lafontaine’s once-lively home is quiet now.
Gaétan has died, leaving Lafontaine’s grandchildren without a parent. Raymond and his wife no longer live together. The construction business he started is now for sale because his sons can’t handle the stress anymore.
Ten years ago, on July 6, 2013, early in the morning, the Lafontaine family was torn apart.
Gaétan, Raymond’s two daughters-in-law, Karine Lafontaine and Joanie Turmel, and an employee, Marie-Nolle Faucher, were among the 47 people killed when a train carrying crude oil derailed on the main street of Lac-Mégantic, a town of about 6,000 people in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, just north of Maine.
Christian, one of Lafontaine’s other sons, called him first thing in the morning to tell him the news.
“The train derailed,” Lafontaine remembers Christian telling him. He lights a cigarette and sits down on his porch to watch the rain come down. “I went there, and that’s exactly where they all burned.”
“Ever since this happened, we don’t feel like we’ve been living. Our children were a present from God.”
On July 6, right after 1:00 a.m., which is the time the train went off the tracks, people in the town will go on a candlelight walk to remember the tragedy.
Lafontaine will stay at home, though.
He says it’s hard enough to grieve for his life before 2013, let alone reliving the moment that made his family so sad.
“We think about our kids every day. “Every day, this tragedy comes back to haunt us,” Lafontaine said. “It’s been 10 years of nightmares.”
“We should be happy again.
Isabelle Boulanger will release butterflies at the grave of her son Frédéric Boutin, as she has done every year since his death.
After the fire, Frédéric’s body was found in front of his apartment building on Frontenac Street. He was 19.
“He was always happy,” Boulanger said of the man.
“He was always wanting to do things. I kept telling him, ‘Don’t be in such a hurry. You’re not old. You still have a long way to go.’ He wanted to do everything, though.now.”
Boulanger says that she still can’t go by the place where her son died, Frontenac Street.
She says, “I guess I just feel like it’s a graveyard.”
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Small things bring Boulanger comfort.
“Most of the families of the victims didn’t have a full body, so they couldn’t put their loved one in a coffin,” she says.
Boulanger and her family have worked hard to get over the loss of their “charming and loving kid.”
“We were always so sad…”At some point, my husband, my daughters, and I just looked at ourselves and said, “Frédéric would not want us to be sad all the time,” Boulanger said.
“We should be happy once more.”
“The rail bypass can’t go anywhere good.
As she walked across the farm where Boulanger grew up on the edge of Lac-Mégantic, she said that the family will soon have to face new problems.
The provincial and federal governments are finally keeping a promise they made years ago.move the railway lineThat still goes through the middle of town, past the street where the train went off the tracks and exploded and the memorial to the 47 people who died.
The planned bypass will go right through Boulanger’s mother’s farm, where she still lives.
The government has told the owners of land along the new route that it will take physical possession of the pieces of land it has taken for the project in August.
It won’t be easy to see the trains go by the farm every day.
“It will be a constant reminder that that train took my son,” Boulanger said.
She plans to continue fighting the new route alongside their neighbours, but knows there isn’t a perfect solution.
“There’s no good place for the rail bypass. There are going to be unhappy people wherever they put it.”
Denis Godin agrees.
Godin, Lac-Mégantic’s director of security, says although some residents are unhappy with the new route, others will be relieved trains will no longer roll through town.
Since the disaster, trains have been forced to slow down as they make the curve on the street where the diesel cars derailed. That and other precautions make townspeople safer, Godin said.
Recovering from traum
Godin, a volunteer firefighter for the past 32 years, was captain of the fire service in 2013.
He was supposed to be on call that July 6, but the day before he switched shifts with the director.
He drove up to his chalet, which has no cellular service.
“My kids realized there was a tragedy,” said Godin.
“They texted me and texted me, again and again. The messages weren’t getting delivered.”
Godin says his daughter drove up to his cabin once she found out he was off duty.
When she told him what had happened, Godin said he thought it was a joke.
“She said, ‘There is no more downtown. All of the town is burning.’ And then she spoke with her sister to tell her everything was OK,” said Godin, breaking down, sobbing.
He arrived in town Sunday, the day after the derailment, and helped direct the search for those missing.
“What was most important for me was to ensure our firefighters weren’t the ones to recover the bodies of the victims,” said Godin.
“Some of them would be able to recognize the victims. I saw the bodies that were pulled out, and I wouldn’t want that for my firefighters.”
In the aftermath, he says, several members of the team sought treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Among them is Éric Mercier.
The volunteer firefighter worked three straight days with little rest following the derailment.
It cost him his mental health.
“I was not sleeping at all. I was sleeping something like five or 10 hours a week and had a lot of bad dreams. One night I had a nightmare and all the family [came] in my room and I didn’t want my family to see me like that.”
He says in the months and years that followed, it also took a toll on many others in the town. “There’s some people who die in the tragedy, but some … they died inside,” said Mercier.
‘We are not victims
Mercier says he wouldn’t have made it without his wife’s support. He sought therapy and got a job in a neighbouring town to cope with the trauma.
“It was good to get out of the town, to see something else, see real life, positive life. It was very good to laugh,” said Mercier.
Mercier is still a volunteer firefighter in Lac-Mégantic and also works in fire prevention for the region.
Looking back on the changes that have taken place over the past decade, he said he’s hopeful that Lac-Mégantic will become known as more than the site of a tragic derailment, but as a place of natural beauty with a lot to offer.
“We don’t want the people of Mégantic to look like victims,” said Mercier, looking out from his office on Frontenac Street over the reconstructed downtown. “We are not victims.”
“We are people, ordinary people, who want to go further.”
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