Members of the Town of Drumheller’s Emergency and Protective Services department, along with Drumheller Fire Department and Drumheller RCMP, participated in a full-scale functional exercise in the Newcastle community early Wednesday morning, March 12.
The exercise focused on responding to a high water event and included a staged evacuation of an area in the Newcastle community.
“The Town facilitates simulated emergency responses at least once per year; however, this exercise was at a much larger scale,” shares Town Communications officer Erica Crocker.
To ensure key personnel were engaged in the scenario, participants also practiced the activation of the Town’s Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) and establishing an Incident Command Post. Ms. Crocker notes the staged evacuation also helped to determine coordination between the various departments, and execution of procedures during an evacuation.
Although the Town, as well as the provincial and federal governments, have invested funding to build berms throughout the Drumheller Valley to protect the community, the berms constructed are designed to withstand a flow rate of 1,850 cubic metres per second (cms); the exercise used a 1:200 year flood with flow rates of 2,100 cms.
“This is about preparation for the potential of real events, so while we are protecting the community to 1,850 CMS, we need to plan if the water was higher and faster,” explains Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Darryl Drohomerski. “In addition, not all areas will be protected, so this gives internal and external teams the ability to plan for ‘what-if’ scenarios.”
CAO Drohomerski adds every municipality is required by the province to have an Emergency Management Plan in place and conduct exercises to ensure key individuals know what to do in the event of an emergency. He also notes while many of the berm projects have been completed to date, construction on the Nacmine and Rosedale berms has not yet started, which prompted the Town to choose the date for the scenario.
“The team did very well for being thrown into the scenario without any advance knowledge,” says Drohomerski. “The biggest takeaway is the need to practice the plan more, so the people get comfortable in the Incident Command Structure that Alberta has adopted to respond to all emergencies.”
