Provincial emergency management base located in PA

The base operates on the Provincial Public Safety Telecommunications Network, which is a radio system for emergency services across the province, and is a partnership between the RCMP and SaskPower.

“The logistics support for the network happens out of this building, as well as the training, coordination and management of the provincial 911 system,” McKay said.

“In addition all our emergency response, whether it’s for flood or wildfire, south of the forest line, or support of municipalities, happens out of this depot as well.”

McKay said they house all the equipment and manpower they need at the facility and that they set up catches all across the province to help support flooding operations.

“We have approximately two and a half million sandbags on station right now and several hundred pumps and they come in different sizes, four inch pumps, three inch pumps, two inch pumps and we have some very large six inch pumps as well. [We have] water tubes, we have all of the inventory ready to go and packages,” McKay said.

They have two semi-trailers full of sandbags, about half a million in each trailer, that are ready to be deployed anywhere in the province.

The base also have kits ready to be deployed to communities that include pumps, sandbags and Hesco barriers, which look like tall dog kennels that they fill with sand.

“It’s our goal to respond to those responses, requests, very rapidly. If it’s a priority call then they will be shipped within an hour or two from when we get the request. Typically we try and do it the same day, depending on the priorities though it may be a couple of days before they go out but any high priority call they are shipped the same day,” McKay explained.

“The fleet is ready to go now and we are moving a lot of equipment into the south area, especially those municipalities that experienced flooding in 2011. When we see a significant increase in the temperatures in the province which are typically forecast around the 22nd, 23rd, we anticipate then that a lot of water will be flowing.”

“We’ll wait and see, all the predictions so far have been wrong so we know that it will warm up and when it does we’ll be ready.”

Day-to-Day Operations

The facility is set up to support operations around the province.

McKay said they begin the day by holding a meeting about what’s going on around the province, what’s expected of them and how they will deploy equipment and manpower to whatever situation is going on.

If there is not event going on they try and maintain equipment in a state of readiness so they can respond in a moment’s notice.

“We are tied in with the 911 system as well as the radio system which allows us to be notified very quickly. Our typical response out of this building will be within 20 minutes. We’ve designed our emergency response system so that all of our equipment is put together already, so it’s just a matter of getting our personnel dressed, attached to the right trailer and out the door,” McKay explained.

Right now the facility is equipped with 40 hotshot team members and between eight and 10 logistic supporters.

Command Stations

The base has a number of fleet vehicles ready to go at a moment’s notice to help with any issues the province may be facing.

Larger command stations can hold up to half a dozen people and allow workers to stay in one location for a few days, while smaller command stations can be deployed for the day.

Because the province is so large, incidents can happen in very remote areas. McKay said they have fleet vehicles that can be used to enter into those areas.

Larger command stations, because they are in one area for a few days, are equipped with technologies such as a wireless network, television reception, lighting, and satellite and radio frequencies so they can remain in touch with the system and what’s going on.

swallace@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahthesquid

by Sarah Wallace

Provincial emergency management base located in PA

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