It’s late Friday night on June 18, 2010. Workers at the I-XL plant are frantically buttressing their enforcements against the rising waters. Front-end loaders keep piling dirt on the south side of the plant—reinforcing the dyke that protects the factory from the raging creek. Here where the Ross Creek makes a final 90-degree turn before emptying into the South Saskatchewan. The sharp turn means the dyke faces the brunt of the water. It must hold and deflect the water. It’s too much too ask. There is simply too much water.
It’s now 2 am early Saturday morning. Al Dillman is walking through knee-deep water in the warehouse full of finished bricks. He can see water rushing in, but is unsure where it’s coming from. As he enters a large room off the main holding room he is confronted by a gaping hole in the exterior wall. The wall has been washed out.
The washed out south wall. Photo credit: Rory Mahony
He returns to the rest of the crew and tells them, “we have lost the battle.” All their efforts have been in vain. Whatever hope they harbored has been dashed by this 30-foot hole in their defenses. Staff begin to leave for higher ground. The bridge washed out earlier that day so they must leave via a back road winding up the coulee behind the brick plant.
Photo credit: Rory Mahony
Photo credit: Rory Mahony
Suddenly, Al remembers Charcoal. Charcoal is the plant cat. Named after a brick of the same colour this stray cat wandered in 2008 and became a fixture around the plant. Charcoal brought the staff closer together. When Charcoal was spade everyone chipped in $10 to cover the surgery. During the flood preparations Wayne Baumback had thought to lock Charcoal in the unloading office so they’d know where she was. But in the chaos she had been forgotten.
A loader is commandeered and turned around. Al hangs on the ladder on the outside of the loader as Wayne drives back to the plant. He jumps down into the thigh-high water and wades towards the shipping office. The office is inaccessible through the building so Al prys open a window from the outside and looks in. He peers through the dark and finally sees Charcoal perched on top of a printer on one of the higher spots, trying to stay dry against the rising water. Al is able to reach inside and grab her. Charcoal latches onto Al with all the tenacity of a drowning person. He carries Charcoal back to the loader and hops back on. They drive to higher ground known as the pipe plant property. Everyone is safe, but unbeknown to them the brick plant is finished.
Photo credit: Rory Mahony
Photo credit: Rory Mahony
Photo credit: Rory Mahony
Each flood is different. The flood of 2013 saw more water in the South Saskatchewan River while the flood of 2010 saw creek levels rise far higher. It was Ross Creek water that flowed through every nook and cranny of I-XL. When the muddy waters receded it left twelve inches of thick silt on everything. It destroyed thousands of drying bricks. It destroyed cutting edge automated robot circuitry. When you added up the outlook of the economy, the trend of the brick market, the cost of the clean-up and recovery it meant the end of large scale brick production in Medicine Hat. And in many ways the end of an era.
Five years later I-XL Brick plant is now known as Medicine Hat Brick and Tile and a part of the Historic Clay District. Pictures of the interior can’t capture the scale of the industry that once inhabited this factory. It’s something to be experienced firsthand. Soon you will be able to. The plant, gifted to Medalta by I-XL, will be opening for tours starting on Saturday, May 16.
Walking through the silent cavernous spaces it’s hard not to feel a sense of loss. The stillness of a place designed to capture kinetic energy is unsettling. Factories need people. They need life. If not for a freak flood this vibrant cutting edge factory would still be operating today. But with tours starting at Brick and Tile you get the feeling that something new is beginning again.
Medicine Hat News. April 2015.
Photo credit: Rory Mahony