On July 6, 2013, Quebec woke up to the horrified discovery that a train carrying crude oil had derailed in Lac-Mégantic. Ten years later, craftsmen from Duty tell how they covered and experienced this tragedy which cost the lives of 47 people and which remains to this day the worst rail disaster in the country.
Like every Saturday morning, Jacques Nadeau gets up early, on July 6, 2013, to go to the gym in his neighborhood. It’s 6 o’clock. But barely mounted on a device, he sees in front of him, on the television screens, the first images of the burning downtown of Lac-Mégantic.
“You don’t think long in these moments, you go for it,” says the photographer. I left the gym, I went home, I took my Kodaks, my laptop, and then go, towards Megantic. »
Halfway, he warns Marie-Andrée Chouinard, then reporter and head of the general news division, who will join him a few hours later for a grueling week of coverage.
Jacques Nadeau still remembers very well this trip which seemed endless to him, but especially this “thick black cloud” which guided him in the last kilometers to downtown Mégantic.
On the spot, near Frontenac Street, the smoke and a strong smell of oil took him by the throat. The fire is still active, the black smoke invades the sky, plunging the place into near darkness. He sees the train cars stacked on top of each other and the firefighters battling the blaze.
Doing neither one nor two, Jacques Nadeau abandons his car and rushes towards the fire, hoping to escape the attention of the authorities to immortalize this image. “It’s unreal! It’s like a picture of the end of the world,” he says, showing his photos, still not coming back ten years later.
He considers himself lucky because, barely an hour later, the Sûreté du Québec erected a security perimeter, which in the following days was transformed into a high metal mesh fence. “We couldn’t see anything. You had to sneak up on the roofs of houses to see something. It has become quite a challenge for photographers to do their job,” he says.
That Saturday, Marie-Andrée Chouinard arrived on the scene in the middle of the day, also struck by the bright red blaze and this impressive black smoke. She also remembers the silence that greeted her. “Despite the chaos, it seemed like, behind the scenes, there was a general state of shock. No car traffic, deserted streets… The horde of journalists had not yet arrived. »
“They needed to talk”
Quickly, a breathless rhythm imposes itself on the journalists, who arrive one after the other. “We had crazy days. I was on adrenaline all the time,” says Marie-Andrée Chouinard.
Press conferences with police authorities and Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche follow one another to reveal the toll of the victims, to take stock of the evacuations and the state of the city center. Not to mention the many visits by politicians, including those of Prime Ministers Pauline Marois and Stephen Harper.
When they are not covering a press briefing, journalists are looking for information on the origin of the accident, which is still unknown. They also go to meet the inhabitants, the bereaved families and the evacuees, who have a lot on their hearts.
“It struck me to see how easy it was to talk to them, they all had a story to tell, they needed to talk,” says Marie-Andrée Chouinard. I remember this man I met at McDo, who had become my office. I was writing my article, I had all my material, but I felt that he really wanted to talk to me. I listened to him. He was at the Musicafé that evening, but he had left at 7:00 p.m. to finish some work and was due to return to see his friends later that evening. Tired, he finally stayed home. It was from his balcony that he saw the whole scene, which he filmed with his phone. He showed me the images, it was striking. So I interviewed him, I added him to my article, and he remained a very good contact. »
“I have not been refused any interview”, adds the journalist to the Duty Stéphanie Marin, who was working at the time for The Canadian Press. She was afraid, arriving as reinforcements two days after the derailment, that people would be tired of repeating their story.
This great openness of the Méganticois has also contributed to making this journalistic coverage significant in his career. “It was the first time that, as a journalist, I really integrated into a community. There was a constant exchange with the population: people confided in us, but they also came to seek information from us. […] It really touched me to see that my simple listening did them so much good. »
Taken over by emotions
Immersed in action, guided by adrenaline and her desire to do her job well, Stéphanie Marin has built herself a shell so as not to crack in the face of so much distress. But when she put an end to her last article, a week later, the journalist burst into tears. “I had been a sponge for a week, absorbing the distress of these people without realizing it. You forget yourself at the time, because it’s not you who is looking for your friends, who has lost a relative or who has just lost your house, but you experience the same emotions. »
Returning to her normal life was difficult. “You feel bad leaving, it’s like you’re abandoning them,” she says, adding that she then compulsively followed all the news about the accident.
Once back in Montreal, Marie-Andrée Chouinard was also inhabited for a long time by images and testimonials. “I was on vacation, but I couldn’t pick up, my head was still there. I realized how terrible it was, what had happened, and at the same time I felt guilty for having experienced a moment of journalistic elation. […] It’s a tragic event for the people of Mégantic and for society, of course, but it remains one of the most beautiful journalistic experiences I’ve had. I feel privileged to have covered this event, privileged to have met these people to tell the general public their story. »