SUNDRE – Local search and rescue volunteers have responded to more calls this summer than the past several years combined, said the organization’s senior search manager.
“It’s absolutely been the busiest summer ever,” Roger Tetreault told the Albertan last week during a phone interview.
Tetreault, an experienced member with the Sundre Search and Rescue Society, was responding to questions about an active search operation that was ongoing in the Abraham Lake area not far from Nordegg, where their counterparts with the Rocky Mountain House Search and Rescue Society were searching for a missing hiker in the Cline River area in a remote mountainous region.
Asked how this summer had gone so far and whether perhaps the number of responses compared with seasons past, Tetreault said the group had to date actually experienced more calls than the last number of years put together.
Above and beyond the recent deployment of about half a dozen members who went out to provide assistance to the Rocky Mountain House Search and Rescue Society’s teams, Tetreault listed a number of other activities the Sundre organization’s volunteers had been involved with.
Operations do not necessarily always exclusively involve a search and rescue effort for a missing person or persons.
For example, Tetreault said that a couple of members had over the Heritage Day long weekend provided assistance helping to man road blocks to prevent traffic from heading into the Ram Falls area amid closures resulting from wildfires at the time.
At about the same time, another call from the Elkton area had gone out one evening about a missing child; but fortunately, that situation had a positive outcome, he said.
“The kid came home a little bit overdue and tired with the family dog, so that was a happy ending,” he said, adding that while the call had been received, members did not end up having to respond.
Roughly a couple of weeks prior, some members had also been deployed to Maskwacis to assist the RCMP, he said.
Additionally, four members were placed on standby during the recent Municipal District of Bighorn wildfire evacuation notice west of Water Valley, he said.
“We (also) had three team members in Leduc on a standby call for fires in northern Alberta,” he added.
One member also volunteered to help out in Jasper after the iconic Rocky Mountain destination had been evacuated prior to the devastating wildfire to go door-to-door ensuring people had vacated the community, he said.
RELATED: Jasper evacuation aided by Sundre Search and Rescue volunteer
Members had also previously received a call about a senior who had been reported missing in town in a situation that also turned out well, he said.
And earlier in July, members provided assistance searching for children who had been reported overdue from a tubing float trip down the Little Red Deer River.
While there are sometimes headlines in the news about people getting swept away in rivers when they sought to escape the summer heat, that fortunately was not the case in this instance, he said.
But the stream’s level at the time was fairly low, creating a crawling flow that resulted in slow-moving water that by extension dragged out the duration of time the children were expected to be out.
“When the water levels are low, it takes way longer to get anywhere and that’s exactly what happened with these kids,” he said.
“They were overdue, but they weren’t lost – it’s hard to get lost on the river – they just took longer than they planned to and the parents were a little bit spooked about it. But it all turned out well,” he said.
“So between that and all of the calls for standbys for fires, it’s been an incredible summer.”
As for last week’s search operation for the missing hiker out near Nordegg, Tetreault also had a few tips to offer anyone who’s endeavouring to embark on an excursion into the mountainous back country.
“There are trip planners that you can fill out and leave on the dash of your vehicle,” he said, referring to jotting down details including where one plans to go and when they expected to return.
“Of course leaving messages with the family is great,” he said, also recommending updating one’s voicemail message on their cellphone.
“The first thing if you’re overdue that people – family, friends, RCMP – are going to do, is call your cell,” he said, adding a detailed message can in such situations prove to be crucial in facilitating the search effort.
“It’s such a simple thing to do; 90 per cent of people when you call their cellphones, you get the recorded cellphone provider voice message that they’re not available. It’s so easy to change your voicemail message,” he said, adding that whoever calls will hear that message regardless of whether the phone’s battery has died or is simply out of service.
