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The City of Lloydminster recently had the chance to test its emergency management plans and hosting capabilities with approximately 800 evacuees in town due to wildfires in northern Saskatchewan.
Andrew DeGruchy, the City’s manager of emergency management, described what the situation was like last Wednesday during a Zoom call with local media.
Evacuees were coming from the areas of Michel Village, Saint George’s Hill, Dillon, Buffalo River Dene and Buffalo Narrows, which were all either fully displaced or have had their vulnerability categorized as displaced due to health concerns from severe smoke in those areas.
“Those evacuations are being coordinated with Meadow Lake Tribal Council (MLTC) as well as the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA), and it just depends where residents are from on who’s looking after those evacuations,” said DeGruchy last week via Zoom.
“Lloydminster is sort of at capacity now, especially in regard to hotel facilities, so the communities of Cold Lake, Prince Albert, Saskatoon and Regina are all starting to take evacuees at this time as well.”
DeGruchy also pointed out MLTC established security at all hotels hosting evacuees and was working with the SPSA to make sure everyone is fed.
The Lloydminster Exhibition has been hosting evacuees for three meals per day with charter buses providing transportation for each meal.
“Aside from that, the City is supporting them with logistics around providing a bus service throughout the community so people can get to recreational facilities, so we’ve worked with Border City Connects to establish a bus route and make sure people have stuff to do while they’re (here).”
Aside from logistics works, the City is also providing behind-the-scenes support for the Canadian Red Cross, MLTC and the SPSA
“A lot of that has to do with recreation, and there’s some volunteer management that we’re getting into as well as we see some of those feeding facilities and hotels get pushed beyond their capacity perhaps,” he said.
“At this time, the wildfire is still classed as ‘out of control,’ so we’re still anticipating we’re in that 10 to 14 day period they’ll be located in the City.”
With Alberta declaring a State of Emergency on May 6, DeGruchy noted the province has also reached out to Lloyd for help.
“The Government of Alberta looked to Lloyd as a possible evacuation route as Edmonton and some of the major urban areas are getting a little overwhelmed with the amount of evacuees they’re getting from western Alberta, they’ve looked to Lloyd as well,” said DeGruchy.
“We’re beyond capacity for that, so if anything, it would be a congregate shelter style. We’ve offered that to Alberta, but they’re going to look at other communities that can provide hotel services instead.”
For those looking to do their part and help out locally, DeGruchy explained a request to the public for volunteers has yet to be made.
“We’re reaching out, specifically to community groups at this time, so for community groups, keep an eye for those requests,” he said.
“If there is a request to the public for volunteers, we’ll certainly do that through our traditional media systems to get the message out, as well as the City of Lloydminster’s Facebook page, if we do get to that point.”
