Disaster pros network in Lloyd

Water shortages in Calgary, wildfires in Jasper and evacuations in Northern Saskatchewan put everyone on alert this summer, including emergency management personnel in Western Canada.

The increase in the number and severity of disasters nationally brought more than 130 professionals to this year's Bordering on Disaster Conference to share best practices.

The event, held Sept 19-20, in the WLS Convention Centre, kicked off with presentations from emergency management pros who've been there, done that, to protect property and lives.

One of those veterans is Kaitlyn McNamara who acted as operations section chief with ATCO's incident command centre during the Jasper wildfire in late July.

"For us, it was making sure everything was safe and shutoff when the fire was occurring and the restoration of service gas to everyone prior to re-entry," said McNamara who is an operations supervisor for Yellowhead West in normal times.

She says the fire and the evacuation of Jasper left a lasting impression on her team.

"That was a scary scene out there for sure and the first time going in and seeing everything had been destroyed—that hit hard for all of us," she said.

McNamara said ATCO mobilized a ton of resources to restore the bulk of gas service in the two weeks from when the fire ripped through the town to when residents re-entered the community.

It was a no-brainer for her and a lot of ATCO personnel to attend the conference to share that experience.

"We seem to be dealing with a lot of emergencies every year, so I thought this was a really good opportunity to see the different players and what everybody has to say," said McNamara.

"There's always something to learn from it."

The keynote speaker on Thursday morning was was also from ATCO. Ryna Brideau-Thombs is an emergency management and business continuity supervisor for the utility company in Edmonton.

She too told the audience, disasters are happening nearly every year now.

"It's leading to more activations, big disasters—more costly, more often. You guys are seeing it too," she said.

Andrew DeGruchy, manager of emergency management for the City of Lloydminster says the conference is a great opportunity to learn a lot about some previous events that have occurred and new upcoming trends in the emergency management world.

He recalled 2023 being a historic year across Canada for wildfires.

"So we're seeing an increase in importance in putting in that effort and steps toward preparedness, so we're ready to provide public protection if needed," said DeGruchy.

He says the main benefit of the conference for the city is the opportunity to network with their emergency management sectors in government and industry.

"It's a big time growing field. We're seeing municipalities realize they have to invest more into it and staff it to a higher level,
said DeGruchy.

"Industry, oil and gas, they're pretty mature with that. A lot of that is federally regulated."

DeGruchy says locally, Lloyd is historically susceptible to flood damage and some tornados as well.

"There's a long list of both natural, technological and man-made hazards that are a potential to us," he said.

"Annually, we'll perform a hazard index to see is more likely or to see what will be the most severe consequences and what is the city doing to prepare for it."

Dean Peters, regional Fire Chief for Legacy Protection Services in the RM of Wilton, came to network and bone up on "what if" situations to be prepared.

"We haven't had that big emergency yet, so it's good to hear from people that have had to see how they've responded and the best practices they've learned," said Peters.

He notes they have done some risk analysis in the RM and they partnered with the regional emergency management collective.

"They've assessed one of our biggest risks is hazardous materials so that's something we're looking at to develop some resiliency and a plan," said Peters.

"One of our biggest threats is our isolated population and isolating events like windstorms and ice storms and the difficulties associated with those things."

Lloydminster Fire Department Chief. Aaron Buckingham sees the conference as an educational tool and great way to network and learn from his peers and colleagues.

"We don't get that opportunity all that often. So to actually talk to people, see what their challenge are see what their opportunities, talk about situations you've been in—that stuff is very valuable," he said.