Rocky View County hosts mock emergency for first responders, supporting agencies

Rocky View County hosted a disaster simulation on Thursday for Emergency Preparedness Week, with crews tackling the aftermath of a mock tornado touch-down.

Rocky View County hosted a mock emergency exercise in multiple communities to mark Emergency Preparedness Week.

The county, the Town of Crossfield and the Village of Beiseker are working together on a scenario where a tornado has touched down at a number of locations where it’s wreaked havoc at an industrial area and destroyed a mobile home park.

Russ Nash, director of emergency management in the Town of Crossfield, is responsible for ensuring all the first responders are coordinated. He says planning for the mock disaster started in 2024.

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“We held a tabletop exercise to kind of go over everything, to go over how we would respond and then we built upon that tabletop to build it into a functional exercise,” he said.

Kinza Barney, Town of Crossfield chief administrative officer, says the exercise is meant to see how various agencies communicate together at the time of crisis.

“Today really is about us preparing for emergencies that happen in the community,” she said.

“Emergencies that come in many forms: sometimes it’s weather-related, it can be accidents or other things and really, when those things happen, the community relies on us to be prepared for that, and this is really us working to be better prepared for those events.”

Barney says the community relies on the town to be prepared to respond to any emergency and keep lines of communication open with residents as events unfold to make sure as many people as possible are out of harm’s way.

“I would say as a community I feel we’re quite prepared. We are a small community and we rely heavily on our regional partners, so these partnerships are critical to our success in being able to respond to emergencies,” she said.

“This exercise becomes an opportunity for us to be able to learn more about how we can improve upon our processes and understand our roles and responsibilities more thoroughly and work together.”

Bill Wohl, of Rocky View County Fire Services, says for the mock disaster, teams have responded to an area east of Airdrie for the scenario where a tornado has touched down in an acreage community.

RCMP, county police, Calgary Search and Rescue, Rocky View firefighters and Canada Task Force 2 worked together to assess damage.

“We have a map and we’ve delegated certain houses to have various types of damage,” he said.

“What (teams) are doing is they’re going around, they’re assessing the damage that’s there, they’re checking for possible occupants and any houses that aren’t damaged, they’re evacuating.”

Ken Hubbard, director of emergency management for Rocky View County, says fire and RCMP are used to responding to emergencies, but when other agencies are brought in to help during massive events, communication is key.

“Under the Alberta Emergency Management Act, every four years, municipalities must practise and do a practical exercise to show their skills,” he said.

“And train to be prepared in advance of any kind of emergency within the county and make sure we look after the emergency that’s happening right here, as well as support the rest of the community that’s not under emergency.”

The Balzac Hall has been transformed into an evacuation reception centre for the day, where 45 high school students from WG Murdoch School in Crossfield are playing the role of evacuees being triaged by Red Cross volunteers.

“The Red Cross provides reception, registration, lodging. Today the Salvation Army is providing our food services,” said Roger Quick, Red Cross emergency management volunteer.

“The exercise for me has been really exciting and it’s helpful to flex those muscles that we’ve been practising all winter to get prepared for this response season.”

Barney says everyone working on the mock disaster has a common goal.

“Being able to work together collectively as a team is what helps us save lives, quite frankly and protect our communities,” she said.

After the exercise, the various agencies will work together to break down everything that happened and look for areas that need improving so that in the event of an actual disaster, they’ll be better prepared.