The weird part about that article and everything else I have heard is that I wonder why there aren't stories of home builders rushing into the area to take advantage of the job opportunities.
The petroleum industry and especially the "wildcaters" who follow the exploration trail are a special breed of cat.
They move in, do their jobs with minimal creature comfort, collect their rewards, and move on. THEN the major oil companies come in with a more permanent workforce that requires the so-called "niceities" of life. The production side of the bubble, if you will.
I worked in a small town in Northern Alberta and for a major engineering/construction company. When we (my family was with me) arrived in Fort McMurray, its population was just north of 700 beating hearts. Four years later we left a small city of more than 30,000 people. Lived in a three bedroom mobile home for two of those years and a company owned three bedroom house for the last two winters (everything is judged by the number of winters spent in a place like that).
The point is that North Dakota is primarily in the "exploration stages" at this point. I wouldn't expect someone like Brian Williams to understand such complexities. Once the production forces move in, life settles back to the routine (and the mundane).
Another point here. We lived in "company owned" housing.
As a citizen of the U.S. and holding only a work permit in Canada I was not allowed to own ANY property in Canada, nor did we qualify for government assistance except for the minimal healthcare available from the two doctors at the company owned clinic. Now in BarryO's America we would have been fat.
