If you notice more emergency vehicles than usual in the County Wednesday, don’t be alarmed. The Grande Prairie Regional Emergency Partnership is putting on an exercise to practice its response to a large scale emergency. Program Coordinator Jennifer Wood says the municipalities and agencies like the RCMP, GPRC and ATCO will have an idea of what’s going on at first, but things will evolve as the day goes on.
“We keep giving them more information and they have to deal with it. Our goal is to practice our response, practice our communication between difference locations, and just see if all of our plans make sense when they’re actually used during an event.”
The exercise will be based out of the Hythe fire hall, but they’ll also have activity at the Beaverlodge community centre and the County Community Services Building. Wood says they wanted to hold it outside of a larger centre.
“They scenario that we’re running through is actually going to be occurring in Hythe because we wanted to practice it with one of the smaller communities being the location of the event. There’s a different level of resource out there and a different level of experience.”
GPREP tries to run large scale events like this every three to five years to make sure the right plans are in place. The last was held in 2011.