A Plane Crash, a Mall Fire, and 43 Reasons to Remember

What possible relevance could another anecdote about my home town have to do with my life here in Doha, you're probably asking yourself.  Stick with me, folks.  I promise to stitch it together.

On March 10, 1989, the pilots of a small Air Ontario jet prepared for their flight from the airport in Dryden, Ontario, scheduled to fly to Winnipeg.  The weather was terrible, with temperatures hovering around freezing, and wet snow was falling.  The plane had already been delayed for several reasons, weather and otherwise.  When the jet finally did take off, it was sluggish, and was unable to gain even enough altitude to clear the forest beyond the runway, shearing off the tree tops in its path.  Less than a minute after taking off, the plane crashed into the dense and remote bush of northern Ontario, 950 metres from the runway.  Of the 69 passengers and crew on board, 24 died.

The tragedy of Air Ontario 1363 was a watershed event for aviation safety in Canada.  A judicial inquiry was commissioned, and after three years (during which time two interim reports were provided to international air transport safety organizations before the final document was completed), Judge Virgil Mohansky had determined that the principle cause of the crash was ice build-up on the wings of the aircraft.  No less significant was the lack of a top-down "culture of safety" at Air Ontario.  Judge Mohansky made 192 recommendations that were adopted by airports in all relevant locations, the most important being changes to de-icing methods used on planes in cold-weather climates.

The following year, a bronze plaque displaying the names of all 24 victims was unveiled at a memorial to remember the tragedy.

So, what's my point?  There's a story in Doha playing out that reminds me a great deal of the Dryden crash.  Try to think of the two stories as those near-identical cartoon pictures you see in the funny pages; see if you can spot the differences.  I think you'll find it anything but amusing.

Last week, three and a half months after a fire at Villaggio Mall claimed the lives of 19 people, the mall was once again opened to the public.  In the time since this tragedy, much has happened as a result.  The days following the fire were filled with an outpouring of grief from the whole community.  Flowers and stuffed animals were laid at the mall's main sign.  There was news that an investigation into the cause of the fire was underway.  Fire safety inspections were taking place at other malls, leaving them closed for days, sometimes weeks, at a time.  A trial date was set for those suspected in playing a part, inadvertent or otherwise, in the sequence of events that led to this unimaginable tragedy.  And finally, there were reports that Villaggio had completed physical changes to the mall to satisfy improvements to its dire safety breaches.

A fire exit bound with a wire, when
the mall opened last week

But what does any of it mean?  The memorials were taken down.  Some of the padlocked fire exits were now bound with wire zip-ties.  The trial was postponed indefinitely because two of the three accused failed to appear.  Many of the changes that have occurred are sadly just knee-jerk reactions in a system that is so badly flawed it seems impossible to overcome.

The difference between the handling of the tragedy in my home town over 20 years ago and the Villaggio fire investigation is that Qatar does not have a culture of enforcement.  Unless there is consistent and lasting enforcement of the regulations that have been put into place, some unaware person will put padlocks back on the fire exits to prevent theft from his store, another may ignore a faulty fire alarm, and someone else will opt to turn off a leaky sprinkler system instead of having it repaired.

So WE have to be vigilant.  We need to keep our eyes open for possible safety issues and if we spot them, tell someone.  Heck, let's yell at them if we have to.  If those changes are adhered to, like the changes made after the Air Ontario crash, who knows how many lives could be saved.

And something needs to be done in a permanent, tangible manner to honour the memory of those who lost their lives.  Not only would it help all of us here now to remember, every time we walk past it, but it would encourage those who come after us to continue along the path of change, one step at a time.

My boys will play hockey again at Villaggio Mall.  To say that I'm dreading it would be an understatement.  I don't want to experience what I felt in those weeks after mothers, sisters, grown sons and daughters, and small children lost their lives.  But I also don't want NOT to feel it.  I don't want to enter Villaggio and pretend it never happened.  I want to be reminded, and I want everyone who enters the mall to remember, so that something like it never happens again.

Not Forgotten

Over the weekend we noticed that we were almost out of beer.  This is an unacceptable state to be in at our house.  Clearly, action needed to be taken.

I mentioned my planned trip to QDC to a friend yesterday morning.  She had been there the day before, and told me that she heard that they were getting a wider variety of pork products in the night before.  And by "wider variety", she meant something other than the Italian luncheon meats and overly salty bacon currently on offer.  Pork chops were going to be available.  Also, they had now started opening an hour and a half earlier, which wasn't yet common knowledge.

So when I arrived at QDC, well ahead of the most of the general public, I was over the moon to see pork chops, baby back ribs, and tenderloin.  I filled my cart (read:  cleaned out their freezer), and really had to put my shoulder into it to wheel it to the till.  While I stood in the store waiting for a friend to return my call with her 'order', I went on FB and checked-in, and wrote a mildly humorous line about finding happiness in a cooler full of pork chops.

The light-hearted banter on that FB check-in continued throughout the day.  And then last evening, a good friend posted a comment on my post about finding happiness in being with her children, and the fact that she still had them.  I knew what she meant.  I knew she wasn't chastising me for being so flippant, for posting something so inconsequential.  For her, it wasn't time yet.  It was too early to be happy about anything.

The last seven days have been difficult.  The profound sadness I felt after the unthinkable in our city last Monday brought me to tears for the better part of the week.  And while this loss was not personal, it managed to become so.  I didn't know any of the families that lost children, but I know people who knew them.  Two degrees of separation.  Too close.

Grief continues to blind-side me.  A dad pushing his baby in a stroller on the compound.  A thought about stopping in to Villaggio to pick up a new shirt for B, impossible now, but the reality being so incongruous that in my subconscious, possible.  The first drive past the mall since the tragedy.  All of these things bring me to tears, unexpectedly.

And still, the question of why lingers, always.  Why that day?  Why not the middle of the night?  Why that specific, small location in what is, by all measures, a very large mall?

On Thursday, the kids' school held a memorial.  That day I signed fifteen books of condolence.  Fifteen.  Can that number be right?  Did I really stand and write something in each book?  It seems impossible that I did.  Two of those books were for families that had lost three children each.  Cue the rage.

On my way home from QDC, in my contented state, trunk full of The Forbidden Meat, I ended up driving behind a small white car that was going too slow for the speed limit and weaving back and forth across the middle lane.  No way I'm following this, I thought, and moved over to the left lane.  As I passed, I saw that there were three small children in the back seat, not one older than four-years-old, all climbing and jumping on the seats, not a seatbelt in sight.  Their mother, who was completely covered, save for the glasses poking out through her face covering, drove on, all the while reading a map that she held up on the steering wheel.  Two weeks ago, this would have been an anecdote to share with Dan later that evening with a smirk and a shake of the head.  Now, I wanted to pull her out of the car, grab her by the shoulders and scream at her.  Do you not know??  DO YOU STILL NOT KNOW ANYTHING??

I think of grief like a deep pit, with a rough, scratchy rope ladder to help you climb out.  For every rung on the ladder that you climb, there is always a little slip back.  Maybe you don't always pull yourself all the way out.

You can find me now, yelling at my kids for not putting their dishes away, posting something funny, and complaining about how long it takes to get N's phone fixed here.  But that doesn't mean that there's not an hour that goes by that I don't think about those 19 people who died here last week, and that sometimes, it still moves me to tears.  It will go on:  the yelling, the jokes, the complaining, and the grief.  All of this, all together.  To be continued.

Shiny on the Outside

Doha looks like any modern city, even by Western standards.  There are museums, stadiums, and high-rises.  The skyline, up against the cool blue of the Gulf, is spectacular.  Our compound is made up of villas that look really quite lovely.  The shopping malls, where we spend much of our leisure time escaping the heat, have everything we need to entertain us: groceries, movie theatres, bowling alleys, restaurants, amusement parks and hockey rinks.

But it's just a facade.  Shiny and new on the outside, only.  We often talk about things that fall apart in our villa, or the questionable support-post smack-dab in the middle of Dan's office at work. Things are constructed quickly, and often, poorly.  It's not a big leap from this conversation to one about how this city is thirty years behind in other aspects.  The smoking in public places, often comically beneath a "No Smoking" sign.  The story about the family who noticed that the fire alarms had been switched off in their daughter's hospital room.  The small children bouncing around the back of SUVs, or on their parents'  laps, unbuckled, while their vehicle speeds past us.  When I'm with friends, we laugh nervously about how backwards things can be here.  After all, this isn't our city.  We're just guests here.  None of this will ever impact us.  Until it did.

Today, the city is reeling with unimaginable tragedy.  Yesterday morning, we heard the news that there had been a fire at Villaggio Mall.  As reports trickled in during the evening hours, we learned with horror and grief that 19 people lost their lives, including 13 small children.  All were expats.  First reports indicate that the fire may have been electrical, and started in or near a drop-in childcare centre.  Two fire-fighters and four teachers died.  Heart-breakingly, one family from New Zealand lost their two-year-old triplets.  The stories of loss become too unbearable to re-tell.

Information is available in bits and pieces—some of it online, some of it first-hand from people who were there.  A fire alarm did go off, but was described as "benign", sounding like a doorbell.  People continued to shop while the mall filled with smoke.  Members of the public urgently told others to get out, while no direction was given by mall staff.  To their credit, when a 999 call was finally made, fire-fighters arrived on scene within two minutes.

When you grow up on the other side of the world, you make certain assumptions about society that linger with you when you move to one that, on the outside, doesn't look that much different from your own.  You assume that society is inherently safe, and that you will be looked after in your time of need. Without giving much thought to it, you assume that there is an emergency action-plan in place at stadiums, schools, and shopping malls.  You assume that there are working fire alarms, smoke detectors, and sprinkler systems.  You assume someone will call 999 if there is an emergency.

As one friend so eloquently put it, this mall was like a village to our community.  Between Dan and the kids, we were there four days a week for hockey.  During practices or between games, we'd have coffee, shop for groceries, and chat friends and teachers from the kids' school.  I have given my kids more freedom as they get older, in the hopes that it breeds a new level of responsibility.  I have let N, last year at age 12, hang out at this very mall with a group of friends, unchaperoned, on a Thursday night.  It was only two days before this tragedy that I sat beside the ice-rink at Villaggio and told J, aged 10, that yes, he could walk down to Virgin (at the complete opposite end of the mall) to check the price of an iPod, while his dad coached and I watched his two brothers play hockey.  What if fire had broken out between us?  Would he have known to leave the building, or would he have tried to come back to where I was?  More importantly, would another adult, a member of the society I have so much faith in, have guided him to safety?  What if, what if, what if.

As Doha comes together to grieve and to try to understand such a senseless tragedy, I hope there is a way to move forward and make this city a safer place to live.  My deepest, heart-felt condolences to those who suffered such incomprehensible loss.