Emergency group moves to new location

Wells Gray Country emergency support group has a new home.

The disaster response committee, formerly housed in the District of Clearwater building, is now headquartered in the Community Resource Center of the North Thompson.

“If we need it, with all the resources this place has, this is the best situation in town,” said Grant Gale, support group chair.

Resource center manager Sylvia Arduini noted that her organization received much of its initial funding following the wildfires of 2003 – when the Louis Creek and other fires more or less isolated the upper North Thompson.

“We felt it appropriate that emergency funding should help an emergency group that’s responsible for much the same area as we are,” said Arduini. The 2003 wildfires were, in fact, when the emergency support group began in its present form, said Gale.

The disaster showed that the area’s disaster planning committee, set up by Bill Mattenley many years before, while possibly ahead of its time when it began, was no longer adequate.

Five years ago the committee set up its emergency operations center in Clearwater Trout Hatchery. That location worked well for them for the fire emergency but they learned they needed a permanent headquarters – a place where they could keep their files, maps, computers, radios and other gear in one location before the situation happened, rather than trying to put it all together after things started getting difficult.

For a while the emergency group located its headquarters in the former conservation officer service offices in what was then the Clearwater Improvement District building. With incorporation, the local government services being offered increased and so they had to move upstairs and the ICBC sales office took over their space.

Recently the District of Clearwater informed the emergency group that it wanted the upstairs office as well.

Gale credited emergency support group member Chuck Emery with doing much of the legwork involved in finding the new location at the community resource center.

Community resource center board member Phil Janicki played an important role in bringing the group’s request to her and the board’s attention, added Arduini.

The resource center has many advantages, said Gale.

Although, at present, they only have a small office, there is plenty of office and meeting room space they could expand into if another major emergency develops.

There is a high speed, fiber-optic Internet link plus two computer labs they could use.

The resource center is centrally located but away from the municipal offices and firehall, said Gale.

“That means we won’t be tripping over everyone’s feet in an emergency situation,” he said.

The regional district services coordinator for Wells Gray Country and Thompson Headwaters, Sherri Madden, is based out of the resource center and so could easily work with the group, if needed.

Wells Gray Country emergency support group includes representatives from Clearwater Fire Department, RCMP, Forest Protection, B.C. Ambulance, Highways, Thompson-Nicola Regional District and Interior Health.