This is a follow up to my last blog entry on disaster related debris. Yesterday I made a 3 hour trip north of Edmonton to the Town of Slave Lake. Slave Lake was ravaged by a wild forest fire on the 14 of May. I first heard about this when I was in Lancaster, PA while attending SWANA's IB meeting.
Slave Lake is a town of about 7,000. The fire blew into town with very little notice - cause of a freak wind storm changing conditions very rapidly. Residents had 30 minutes or less to evacuate the town. Some left their homes with the fire at their backs. All 7000 people were evacuated with no loss of life and no injuries. After the fire, the damage assessment reported around 230 homes in town and another 60 homes in neighbouring areas completely burned. businesses burned included an equipment shop, a car dealership lost a row of new vehicles, a shopping mall was half destroyed, and several businesses. The main government building that housed the Town office, library and several government offices was completely destroyed. In fact town employees were still in the building manning phones and computers as the fire during the initial emergency call but were chased out of the building as it caught on fire.
I had been asked by the Provincial Environment Department and the local regional landfill manger to help with disposal advice on the clean up material from the disaster. As its contribution, my employer, The City of Edmonton generously donated my time to Slave Lake. On the way to Slave Lake, I had no idea what to expect. I only knew what had been reported in the media. I was traveling with Alberta Environment staff so access to the Town was not impeded as it could have been if I went on my own.
Our first introduction to the scene was at the emergency response centre and we were asked to sit in on the morning briefing. This was 10 days after the fire. after sitting through the briefing meeting, I was starting to wonder why I had been asked to help out. We were amazed at the incredible organization that was in place and how much had already been done. This included provincial agencies, emergency services from across the province, local town employees, volunteer organizations that had all been well coordinated to deal with the disaster. You could see the focus is there to get residents back in their homes and to get the town back to some normality. I saw a community spirit that I've only seen once before and that was in Edmonton after a devastating F4 tornado.
Our second glimpse of the response activities were during a tour of the Town with the Landfill Manager who was coordinating the disposal operations. We saw a well organized clean up and forensic program. there was an incredible effort to recover and recycle as much material as possible. metals was extracted with magnets and baled. plans for concrete recycling were in place. Plans for refrigerator and freezer disposal from unburned homes were in place. (these homes were with out power for a week and plans were put in place because of expected odour damages). Plans were already in place for handling this large volume of material that needed to be disposed of in a small regional landfill. I still did not know what was expected of me, nor did I understand why I was there. Everything seemed to be well organized and under control.
As the day went on, i then saw what help I could provide. First moral support to Tom, the landfill manager and his counterpart from Athabasca who has been helping him through this challenge. Second, I could provide some help finding information that could be of use to the Town and Alberta Environment on final clean up to ready the properties for re-building. I could provide advice to the landfill operator as he needs in handling material at the landfill and to help him make contacts for recycling of various materials (although they have done extremely well so far). They were also looking for another landfill compactor to help them through this crisis. I found one this morning - our landfill is no longer active and the owner of the landfill compactor is still has it available.
Before I went to Slave Lake, I sent an email to Jessica at SWANA and asked if SWANA had any information on clean up after events such as this. Jessica went to work and not only found information but led the way to help make contacts through the SWANA membership who have dealt with these disaster responses and clean ups. This information and these contacts have been extremely helpful. I think I received emails from all across the US in response.
It is times like this that we can really appreciate the value of SWANA and its members and their enthusiasm for helping others out, and with no expectations in return. This experience has made me even more proud to be a SWANA member.
Thanks SWANA, and a huge thankyou to Jessica.