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A recent fire at the Lloydminster Cenovus Energy Upgrader puts the upcoming Bordering on Disaster (BOD) conference into a higher state of awareness about emergency planning.
Cenovus is the sponsor of the BOD virtual afternoon conference, chaired by Andrew DeGruchy, manager of emergency management with the City of Lloydminster, this Friday (April 21).
“We do lots of training and coordination with Cenovus Energy and all of our industrial stakeholders, so we try to stay in the highest state of readiness as we can,” said DeGruchy.
“Whenever something occurs we both have a post-incident analysis of what can go on next time.”
Cenovus let the city know they responded to a fire at the Upgrader at approximately 7 p.m. on April 13 and had the fire out by 9 p.m. with no injuries.
“Cenovus’ priority is the safety of our people, the community and emergency responders. We’ll undertake a thorough investigation to determine the cause,” said Cenovus in an email update on Monday.
DeGruchy said Cenovus was “good in reaching out right away, just to let us know there was no risk to public safety” for any Lloydminster resident.
“Once we were able to identify they were able to handle the incident on their own, especially given this was outside of the city’s jurisdiction, we let them handle their own response.”
DeGruchy says the city categorizes disasters as either natural hazards or weather-related events, technological hazards like the Upgrader industrial fire and man-made or intentional hazards.
“We group them into those three categories and we plan for them each differently,” he explained.
DeGruchy is confident the BOD conference will benefit the city’s emergency planning and the city’s profile as the event host.
He says bringing all of these expert speakers to our area will give their emergency management staff a tremendous boost from that information.
“Personally, I’d like to see it being a success, get a lot of training pushed out to the region, and get lots of insights from some of the speakers. We’re just hoping to put out a really good product to the region,” said DeGruchy.
He is most interested in listening to a presentation by Lilia Yumagulova, one of the two guest speakers.
“She’s talking about equity and equality in our delivery of emergency management and I think it’s going to challenge some of the current constructs in emergency management, so I am interested in what her studies have showcased for that,” said DeGruchy.
Yumagulova’s research focuses on Indigenous self-determination and the role of women in disaster risk reduction, climate displacement and planned relocation.
Expert panellists will also share their unique perspectives and insights on civic engagement.
DeGruchy says municipalities take their emergency planning direction from provincial governments.
“We’re governed by the provincial governments that provide public safety and protection on any hazard onset,” explained DeGruchy.
That can range from advising on self-protective measures to supplying emergency social services when people have been displaced by a hazard.
The virtual BOD conference takes place two weeks before National Emergency Preparedness Week.
“Our Lloydminster emergency management team is going to be going to all the schools within the city and going to be conducting some presentations,” said DeGruchy.
The theme this year is how to build better preparedness habits into your everyday life that will help everyone be more resilient in the event of a hazard.
The BOD conference with resume with a two-day in-person event at Lloyd Ex in September.
“I think everybody’s a little burnt out by webinars and Zoom stuff post-pandemic. We’re kind of excited to get the event started at the Lloyd Ex and get a nice in-person conference going,” said DeGruchy.
He says the two-part BOD will create some benefits with economic development for the area by having a big event like this showcased in Lloydminster.
