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By Chantal Wagner

with guidance from province

City planning on reopening playgrounds and skateparks

May 20, 2020 | 3:40 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – This is the 11^th week of emergency activation for the City of Medicine Hat’s COVID-19 response.

Director of emergency management Merrick Brown says this is the longest response time he has had.

With provincial relaunch plans underway, the city is also working on plans to reopen playgrounds and skate parks as discussed during the city’s weekly COVID-19 update on Wednesday morning.

This comes from the province releasing guidelines for playgrounds Tuesday afternoon.

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The city will be working with the Town of Redcliff, Cypress County, and school boards to reopen playgrounds all at once.

Brown says this will take time.

The city owns and operates over 80 play structures and there is no timeline or date for reopening yet.

City staff must also inspect every single one of the playground structures to make sure they are designated as safe for children to use.

“I know that we do have signs up there that state “Do Not Use” but we need to put up new signs now that specify different things like restrictions or limitations regarding the use of those playgrounds limiting to those individuals within the neighbourhood. We need to put up signs around proper personal hygiene and limiting to single households using those playground structures.”

He adds, “Along with those guidelines were also required to review and or revise sanitation guidelines as it relates to washrooms as well.”

Brown says it’s much the same for reopening city hall and the Esplanade, with many regulations that must be met first.

The director of emergency management also discussed the city’s preemptive flood measures.

Brown says this is being done out of an abundance of caution.

“Just because we’re filling sandbags right now does not mean we’re going to have a flood.”

And they are doing this to maintain the safety of the public while in a COVID-19 environment.

Currently, the South Saskatchewan River is flowing at 196 cubic metres per second.

A flood flow would have to see that number at 5,000 cubic metres per second.

Brown says rain in the forecast this week does not mean there will be a flood

“There needs to be a “perfect storm” and different factors to create those conditions for a flood.”

Conditions include high snowpack in the mountains, high soil moisture concentration, a lot of rain in the mountain ranges, and warm temperatures.