SUNDRE – Following a devastating, record-setting wildfire season that prompted widespread evacuations in the N.W.T. as well as B.C., municipalities have an impetus to ensure they and their neighbours are prepared for the worst, said Sundre's mayor.
Richard Warnock offered his thoughts on Sept. 18 during a regular meeting of council when administration presented a request for a motion approving the municipality’s participation in a grant application process being led by the Mountain View Regional Emergency Management Agency (MVREMA).
“The core of this is about neighbours helping neighbours,” said Richard Warnock, adding one need only take a quick look at what’s happening not only around Canada but also the world with natural disasters such as fires to grasp the gravity of the situation.
“It’s best to have a plan we can exercise and put in place to protect our residents,” said Warnock. “So, I think we have to support this. Let’s face it, it’s in the news everyday now; evacuations like they had in the north and British Columbia and so on.”
Mountain View County is the chair of the agency, of which the municipality is a member of, said Linda Nelson, chief administrative officer.
The agency had previously proposed that the regional partners apply for the Alberta Community Partnership Grant to create an emergency social services (ESS) plan and ultimately host a functional exercise. ESS is defined in Alberta as “the support that meets the basic essential needs of individuals, households, and communities affected by emergencies,” reads background information in council’s agenda package.
“They are provided as part of the response to and recovery from emergencies,” it reads in part.
Agency members agree to join with the understanding that any large activation of the emergency plan will require all of the municipalities in the region to come together and provide assistance to citizens displaced by disaster.
Coun. Owen Petersen said he liked the sound of a functional exercise.
“Reading at the beginning, it just seemed like another study about how we’re going to deal with problems, but not actually exercising how we’re going to deal with them,” said Petersen, adding he was pleased to see the training exercise included in the overall plan.
“I’m going to assume that the exercise that we would participate in would be an evacuation to support an emergency social services plan,” said Nelson.
Coun. Paul Isaac said he agreed with the necessity of having such a plan in place, but wanted to know if all of the municipalities in the area were also onboard.
“What happens if one municipality chooses to not do this – or decides they can’t do this – where does that leave the rest of us?” Isaac asked.
Nelson said that in such an instance, the remaining member municipalities would pick up any leftover logistical slack.
“But once the emergency social services plan has been written and adopted, then there’s no more work to be done unless there’s an actual emergency where we did need to evacuate people to it would be probably a regional evacuation centre,” she said.
“As far as I know, the other municipalities have already supported this, and we’re probably the last one to bring a motion forward,” she later added.
Council proceeded to commit the municipality’s full support toward the grant application process as well as to create the emergency social services plan and complete the project.
