Area organizations prepare for potential disasters

Mark Murphy of Alberta Emergency Management Agency
C. Davis photo

Chris Davis, Pincher Creek Voice

Personnel from area social agencies and emergency departments participated in a three day course held last week in the basement of the MD of Pincher Creek building.

The course was led by Mark Murphy, Field Officer of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency's southern region.  He was assisted by Emergency Management Officer Fleming Kristensen.  Participating were Town of Pincher Creek,  MD of Pincher Creek, Village of Cowley, Pincher Creek Emergency Services (which includes Lundbreck and Beaver Mines stations), Red Cross, and staff and volunteers from other area organizations, including people from Cardston and Crowsnest Pass.

"We are helping the Pincher Creek area be better prepared for large scale emergencies or disasters," said Murphy during Friday's wrap up exercise, which had the group setting up a simulated emergency reception centre.  "We know that there are car accidents, there are fires that happen.  911 is called in most cases.  The fire department, the police, the ambulance go out and and the situation is solved.  However, as we've seen lately there are bigger fires, or bigger events, including flooding, train derailments, wind storms, tornadoes, and one of the things that a community has to do is be prepared.  Both it's citizens with a 72 hour kit, and the community itself."


"One of the things we are doing is we are practising what is called Disaster Social Services."

"One of the main parts of that is if you have to evacuate a large number of people, you have to put them somewhere," Murphy continued.  "They have to go somewhere to get the basic necessities of life.  We are setting up what is called a reception centre .  This is a case where you could have anywhere from a couple of people to a couple of hundred,  where they are evacuated from one location and they're sent somewhere else. The idea is that you provide shelter, food, water, perhaps some clothing, or personal services, like counselling and stress debriefing.  This is an area that people can go and feel safe.  It's like a one stop shop while they've been evacuated from their home."

Modelling an emergency scenario

"Recently, Slave Lake comes to mind.  The folks were evacuated for almost two weeks.  We've also had recently a fire in the County of Lethbridge where the town of Coalhurst was evacuated to the town of Picture Butte for about eight hours.  In some cases, they might have to stay overnight, so a reception centre is designed to coordinate lodging, food, counselling, and other things like that.  We did a day and a half of theory, and now we're putting things into practice, we're setting up a simulated reception centre   So, as you see, we have a number of signs that indicate where people would go looking for various services."

The group problem solved some scenarios, including how to help the hearing impaired, what to do if someone is having mental issues, how to provide clothes  for those that need them, how to help someone who cannot find a family member, how to assist a young person looking for their parents, how to arrange lodgings and various other necessities of life.

"Ideally in a perfect world a community would do this once a year if possible, just to keep the skill sets up to date" Murphy.  "We have emergencies all the time and the good news is that most of them are handled by our fire, police and ambulance. When you have a bigger event, because they don't often have one, they get rusty."

"The Pincher Creek Community Emergency Management Agency has a plan in place, so we are taking this opportunity to practice the plan."

Pincher Creek Fire Chief Dave Cox is currently the Acting Director of Emergency Management for the The Pincher Creek Community Emergency Management Agency.  "My Deputy Director is Jim Cisar," he said.  Cisar is also Cowley's Fire Chief.  Ralph (Bourque) is the Assistant Deputy director, we've got five of those in our organization."

"We've identified that our Social Services component of being able to provide in  disaster was limited," continued Cox.  The Province provides this kind of training so we've been working at this for probably six to eight months to get Mark to do this training.  It turned out really well, because we're not only doing our community but have a bunch of communities involved in it."

Pincher Creek's Town Council building at 962 St. John Avenue is the designated local Emergency Coordination Centre.  Cowley Hall at  122 Cameron Street in Cowley  is the alternate location.

Should you be in the position to volunteer at an Emergency Coordination Centre, realize your help may be turned away if it is not needed.  Volunteer Services is responsible for coordinating volunteer activity. Volunteers will always be asked to sign in so they are covered by Workers Compensation. Be aware that the Red Cross is prohibited from handing out used clothing.

The first goals of Emergency Coordination is to ensure that people have shelter, clean water, food, and sanitary facilities.

During the question and answer period that closed out the exercise I asked Mark Murphy what role the press would ideally play in a real situation like the one they were modelling.

"The press are not allowed in here," he said.  "The press are never allowed.  There are never any pictures of anybody or anything taken at a reception centre. This is a real, important rule because people are very upset.  No media would be allowed in.  If it was in this building, the media would be allowed on the sidewalk, that's it.   There are no pictures and no interviews done in a reception centre.  It's their house now."

He said Emergency Coordination Centres often work with the media to disperse critical messages to the public.

That coincides with our own policies here at the Pincher Creek Voice.  In a disaster scenario we consider our main objective would be to disseminate as much useful and timely information to the general public as warranted by the situation, as we have done in the past, using this website, Facebook, and Twitter as our major outlets.  However, it is also possible that we might find ourselves unable to do so in some scenarios.  If a disaster strikes, radio has proven to be a very effective source of timely information, and is less vulnerable to disruption than other forms of media.

A media coordinator is part of the Red Cross plan for emergencies and disasters.

A copy of the 2012 Public Version of the Pincher Creek Municipal Emergency Plan can be found by clicking here and then scrolling down to the bottom of the page  It's in the form of a downloadable PDF file.  A physical copy is available at the Pincher Creek Public Library.
EMERGENCY/DISASTER RELATED LINKS:
911

Pincher Creek Emergency Services
Pincher Creek Emergency Management/Disaster Services
72 Hour Emergency Kit
Environment Canada
AMA Road Reports
Alberta Emergency Alert
Avalanche Bulletins

Emergency Coordination Centre for Pincher Creek and area:
Pincher Creek Town Hall at 962 St. John Avenue, Pincher Creek.  Alternate: Cowley Hall,  122 Cameron Street, Cowley.

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Mountain Radio:
Pincher Creek at 92.7 FM
Crowsnest Pass at 94.9 FM