YELLOWKNIFE — Officials in Yellowknife, as well as staff with the Northwest Territories, are getting ready for the start of a mass migration home of wildfire evacuees that's still on track for Wednesday.
Yellowknife city manager Sheila Bassi-Kellett said workers in grocery stores, pharmacies, home-heating providers, and even some taxi drivers and daycare providers are on their way back to the city in advance of Sept. 6 -- the date announced last week for the lifting of the evacuation order when all city residents will be allowed to return.
"It's not who you are, it's basically the positions you hold," Edison told the news conference about the people who are being allowed back early. For returnees who will be driving home, Boast said the territory is preparing for the anticipated influx of traffic on Highway 1 to Yellowknife, including security points to prevent access to Enterprise, a hamlet where community officials have said 80 percent of homes and businesses were destroyed by flames.
Anyone who is not on the list of essential workers who have been asked to return now has been warned not to try to return early, although RCMP said they haven't had to turn anyone away and no arrests have been made under the Emergency Management Act.
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