Squamish Nation and District launch cross-jurisdictional emergency preparedness partnership

5 days before Great Shakeout: District of Squamish and Squamish Nation to run multi-jurisdictional evacuation exercise

Saturday, October 15 will be no ordinary day in Squamish as no less than ten organizations will participate in the first mass, cross-jurisdictional evacuation exercise to practice and validate key competencies of the District of Squamish and Squamish Nation evacuation plan. Strategically scheduled less than a week in advance of the nation-wide Great Shakeout, this exercise is designed to notify, inform and mobilize citizens in the event of a community-wide crisis.

Prior to the exercise, the District of Squamish and Squamish Nation will announce an emergency management partnership aimed at creating joint emergency response processes, plans, training and tools to maximize community resilience and harmonize response for the community of Squamish.

“The strong ties we’re building with the Squamish Nation on emergency planning are key to enabling such a comprehensive exercise,” says District of Squamish Mayor Patricia Heintzman. “Our work to create a single and unified emergency management partnership is fundamental to improving our collective resilience across all our communities through shared planning, processes, training and communications, to name a few.” Heintzman further states, “This truly highlights the strength of our Corridor partnerships and relationships, and I congratulate and thank all the agencies coming together for this exercise.”

The exercise will test elements of the collaboration the District and Squamish Nation have worked to achieve, as well as the growing unified approach to emergency management that extends throughout the Squamish Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) communities. The exercise will involve face-to-face engagement with up to 660 residents in the Brackendale neighbourhood and the Cheakamus Reserve, and will also test the new community-wide emergency alert system ‘Squamish Alert’ and ‘Squamish Nation Alert’, powered by the ePACT Network.

“Having experienced and managed a range of emergency events over the decades, the Squamish Nation understands that collaborative, government to government planning, training and communication is key to ensuring our people are safe,” says Squamish Nation Councilor and Spokesperson Chris Lewis. “We look forward to working on emergency response training, exercises and systems with the District of Squamish, SLRD, other agencies and organizations to increase the safety and support of our members.”

The exercise will involve more than 75 emergency personnel from the District of Squamish, Squamish Nation, Squamish-Lillooet Regional District and the Resort Municipality of Whistler. This is the first joint functional exercise in the Sea-to-Sky Corridor, with the following agencies also involved: RCMP Squamish Detachment, Squamish Fire Rescue, Squamish Search and Rescue, Squamish Marine Search and Rescue, Red Cross/ Emergency Social Service Teams (Whistler, Squamish and Pemberton), Squamish Radio Team, Squamish Nation Safety Team, District of Squamish Emergency Operations Centre.

Various organizations and government agencies are recognizing this collaborative program as an emerging best practice in emergency preparedness. Several municipalities are also looking at opportunities to leverage learnings from this program, including the recently launched emergency alert system which the District, Squamish Nation and SLRD all now use to reach residents.

“It is the work of innovators like the District of Squamish and the Squamish Nation that will truly help to move the dial on safety and preparedness for our citizens,” says Naomi Yamamoto, Minister of State for Emergency Preparedness for B.C. “We look forward to seeing the results of this new program and working with other municipalities to build on its success. Our government has worked hard to educate British Columbians on the potential hazards in our province, and it is encouraging to see local authorities translate this awareness into preparedness.”

The District and Squamish Nation recently began using the North Vancouver-based ePACT emergency network to coordinate emergency processes across organizations, and send email, text and voice alerts to residents who sign up. Whether to stay indoors in the event of toxic smoke, or evacuate during a flood risk, residents across the community can be informed with important, consistent emergency alerts before, during or after a crisis. To date, 12 percent of all Squamish residents have already signed up for the program.

“ePACT is being used across Canada and the US, however, we’ve never seen such an innovative approach to using our network and collaborating across communities as what the Squamish District and Squamish Nation are doing,” says Christine Sommers, CEO of ePACT. “We’re excited to see residents signing up so quickly, and that ePACT is able to support these communities increasing their resilience.”  

The Corridor emergency exercise is expected to take place annually and will be hosted in a different community each year.

October 14, 2016