Alberta Floods 2013: Emergency services forced to pivot response plans during flood

Fire crews were forced to move their operations from their station on Maple Avenue to a temporary station in Crescent Heights due to concerns the station could be compromised.

They too were also worried about the bridge closing and wanted to make sure they could provide life-saving services to residents on both sides of the South Saskatchewan River.

Former Chief Brain Stauth says the evacuation was one of the strangest days of his career.

“Standing at the front door of the Maple Avenue fire station after we’ve moved out all of our equipment and we have shifted our people to the north side of the river and looking at that empty fire station and wondering what might happen in the days to come from a water perspective.”

Police faced a similar challenge, concerned their headquarters could also be affected by the flood. Important documents, files and supplies from the basement and first floor of the station needed to be moved to a safe location.

(CHAT News file photo)

They moved the entire police service into the former environmental utilities building in the industrial area on the southwest side of the city.

“We had a lot of people pull together in the service here. I know one of our staff sergeants, Chad Holt, was basically tasked with setting up another police station and we pulled it off in short order,” said Insp. Joe West who served as operations chief during the emergency.

From both temporary locations fire and police crews were able to respond to the extra calls generated by the flood as well as help the military who was called in to protect vulnerable areas.

(CHAT News file photo)

“It was a massive neighbourhood effort and we saw all kinds of people come into areas that required sandbags, volunteering to fill sandbags, certainly trying to place those sandbags in properties that required that kind of specific protection,” said Stauth.

After the water level receded, police and fire crews joined gas and electric operators as well as mental health workers to help make sure homes were safe for evacuees to return.

“We set up a command post right across the street here from the police service and had a system with paper maps and everything and markers and tried to have an organized safe way to get people back into their homes,” said West.

West witnessed the entire community come together to support residents who lost all their belongings as well as their homes.

“There were sandbag operations, there were evacuation operations, we had to set up an emergency shelter and so the number of volunteers we had just showing up to do something was incredible,” explains West.

Since the flood, the City of Medicine Hat has work extensively on flood mitigation and prevention at a total cost of around $34 million.

The city now has several kilometres of berms built to help protect areas that were compromised by rising waters, it has also relocated several sewage lift stations and installed more sewer isolation valves in properties.

The city is also constantly training for another large-scale emergency with emergency exercises and tabletop scenarios.

by Brendan Miller

Alberta Floods 2013: Emergency services forced to pivot response plans during flood

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