OLDS — The Olds Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) is now formally shut down -- unless the COVID-19 pandemic roars back to life.
Officially, the EOC was activated for 120 days -- March 16-May 24 -- although chief administrative officer Michael Merritt pointed out about two weeks were taken up ahead of time to get things organized. Some time was also taken afterward to wind it down. It was formally shut down on July 14.
Jennifer Lutz, the town’s deputy director of emergency operations reported to council a day earlier that staff dedicated about 6,100 hours to providing support for the EOC.
Merritt expounded on that.
“Basically with the EOC there hasn’t been a weekend, a day, it’s been 24/7 of monitoring the situation, so a lot of effort being put in. It’s definitely kept us busy,” he said.
Mayor Michael Muzychka, Merritt and several councillors praised staff for all their efforts to cope with the pandemic – in the EOC and elsewhere.
Lutz stressed staff are monitoring the COVID pandemic closely with a view to restarting the EOC, should the disease flare up again.
“We’re definitely keeping an eye on this and monitoring this, so if we do have an active outbreak then we are geared up to handle that,” she said.
In the meantime, town staff will analyze how well the EOC handled the pandemic and associated issues. Plans call for a report to be presented to council this fall.
“There’s a ton that we have learned through this process; just building that institutional learning, so if we walk out the door and win the lottery, the lessons learned haven’t been forgotten,” Lutz said.
“We definitely got smarter as time went on. We built a lot of things that we didn’t know, with forms and processes, so making sure that those are within our plans so we can do it again.”
As part of the analysis, staff will be polled for their thoughts on how things went and how the EOC and its operations could be improved, should it be needed again. Council will also be asked for feedback.
“We hope to celebrate and acknowledge our partners, our staff, volunteers in the community and stuff.
“Because really, Central Alberta, our community, we’ve handled this in a positive way, keeping COVID cases low and it’s been a good experience in a bad situation,” Lutz said.
Coun. Heather Ryan was among those who praised town staff for their efforts at the EOC.
“I imagine it was quite trying at times but you seemed to overcome any obstacles thrown at you, so that’s amazing,” she said.
Lutz admitted it wasn’t all smooth sailing. She said for the first week or two, the EOC group was “stumbling” until they figured out procedures and lines of communication.
“But it wasn’t long and we were gelling and kind of getting that operational rhythm. Just how that works together was a big learning (curve),” she said.
Director of operations Scott Chant praised the town’s outside workers for the job they did during the pandemic.
“They were deemed an essential service and they didn’t have the ability to work from home or in an office and some of that, right?
“They had to be on the street every day dealing with water running, wastewater going away, garbage to be picked up and stuff,” he said.
“So I think there was a lot of work done in the background, but they were on the street every single day through the height of this and I think huge kudos to our parks and utilities and public works staff working through that.”
Chant also pointed out this was the first time town staff had undertaken emergency operations and organizational meetings fully on Zoom.
“But I think it was an incredible feat by doing this – a virtual EOC right off the get-go. I don’t think we’d ever planned on an exercise for doing that,” he said.
Muzychka agreed.
“This crisis has launched us into a lot of uncharted territories, for certain,” he said.
