First responders take matters one case at a time

By Tin Kalinowski on March 30, 2021.

Fire crews respond to a house fire on Trent Road West on Sunday. Herald photo by Al Beeber

LETHBRIDGE HERALDtkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com

The old Chinese curse goes: “May you live in interesting times -” and we have certainly been doing that lately, says Lethbridge Director of Emergency Management and Chief of Fire and Emergency Services Marc Rathwell, with escalating COVID-19 numbers, winds, fires and snowstorms as March comes to an end.
Rathwell says the key to getting a handle on it all for local first responders is to break it down one case at a time and address each as needed.
“When we boil it all down, we only had one major emergency in the city (this past weekend), he states, “and that was the house fire on the westside.
“We were able to respond quickly with an appropriate number of staff, and we were able to get that contained very quickly considering the winds we were dealing with.”
That is not to say the wind itself, sometimes gusting to over 100 km/ h the past few days, is not an event in and of itself, says Rathwell.
“We are still getting some (damage) assessments in,” he explains. “I know we had at least one light stand that was blown over, and I know there was a stage at the Exhibition grounds that the wind was wreaking havoc with as well. Outside of that, I don’t have the rest of the list of damages or issues that came up.”
The snowstorm which caused such havoc in the city on Monday morning was not insignificant. But Rathwell says, in his mind, that event was more of a mixed blessing than an outright curse.
“Yes, the mess was because we had quite a few motor vehicle accidents to start off our day, which is always tough on the general public,” he acknowledges. “But the snow, and the moisture, always helps us with our risk of wildlands fire.”
On the other hand, Rathwell says, the Blood Tribe fire on Sunday was more of a perceived threat to Lethbridge residents due to the ominous smoke rising in the distance than an actual one. The fire was actually west of the airport and about 10 km south of the city, and did not come too near, he explains, but it was still a threat the Lethbridge fire department took seriously.
“We were prepared and we had teams that were stood up, and they were actually monitoring in case the fire jumped the river,” confirms Rathwell.
“It never did, but we were prepared for it, and had the crews ready to go literally sitting in the trucks at the site ready to start fighting if it jumped the river. We staged men and equipment on the east side of the river, and we were monitoring that situation.”
COVID-19, on yet another hand, is a continuing threat to the citizens of Lethbridge, confirms Rathwell, and the City’s Emergency Coordination Centre continues to monitor the situation closely.
“We are in constant contact with our Alberta Health Services and Alberta Health partners,” explains Rathwell, ruling out additional local emergency management efforts outside of that collaboration. “They are the science behind all of this, and they are giving us the guidance. They still have an emergency situation (declared) for the province; so they supersede any of our pieces anyway.”
One piece the local ECC is in the intensive planning stages for is to provide additional assistance to AHS with a massive vaccine rollout at Exhibition Park once those doses arrive and become available to Lethbridge residents by arranging parking management, bus transport and whatever other logistical support is necessary to get the clinic up and running as smoothly as possible, Rathwell confirms.
“We are seeing our numbers start to flatten a little bit,” he says optimistically. “We are hoping between the vaccinations, the continued messaging, and all the other health orders, we are hoping to see the numbers come down in the near future.”

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