23 March 2011

CP Rail Nixes Participation in Mock Emergency

Salmon Arm British Columbia - That CP rail has pulled out of a large-scale, multi-agency, emergency exercise is a done deal.
 
But the reasons for the withdrawal are not so cut and dried.
 
The railway announced their withdrawal on 21 Feb 2011, just weeks before the 29 Mar 2011 exercise.
 
Shuswap Emergency Program co-ordinator Cliff Doherty says the railway asked that the media be barred from the exercise in a 7 Feb 2011 phone call.
 
"Several members of the design team that included RCMP, MOE (Ministry of the Environment), British Columbia Ambulance Service, and the Salmon Arm Fire Rescue spoke strongly in favour of keeping media involved in the exercise and the importance of working in partnership with the media during emergency response and management," says Doherty, noting at which time planning agencies agreed to schedule a special meeting to further discuss the issue on 21 Feb 2011.
 
CP Rail media rep Kevin Hrysak took part in the 7 Feb 2011 phone conference and disagrees with Doherty's assessment.
 
Hrysak says CP Rail's main concern was with safety, as the exercise will involve a large number of people very close to a main line. As well, he notes, the railway was "caught off-guard" with the extent of media involvement, which includes radio coverage by a Kamloops station.
 
"We didn't say no to media, just to what they had proposed," he says, pointing out CP was happy with an hour or so set out specifically for interviews instead of having media onsite for the full length of the exercise. "We just didn't think that was a good idea... sometimes things can be misconstrued or reported wrong."
 
But Doherty stands by his assessment and says if there was a communications breakdown it was internal with CP Rail.
 
"We have been talking about this since December 2008, and the railway has been onboard with us for the two years leading up to this," Doherty says, agreeing that while CP did offer two other possible sites for the exercise several months earlier, they came to understand why they were not workable options.
 
"They accepted the Canoe site and we have that in writing," says Doherty, who points out that a phone conference set to further discuss the issue on 21 Feb 2011 came to an abrupt end when CP Rail announced their withdrawal.
 
Doherty said the large-scale event was first discussed in 2008, when Rocky Mountaineer officials had expressed an interest in practising their emergency training and BC Ambulance was interested in practising a multi-casualty triage situation. Shuswap Lake General hospital officials were also keen to practise their processes for a large-scale event.
 
A Columbia Shuswap Regional District function, SEP has played a co-ordination role in the exercise designed to be "extremely realistic."
 
And some 99 area residents volunteered their time as casualty victims, following a 19 Jan 2011 Observer story. How many will actually be involved in the exercise remains confidential in order to maintain realism for emergency responders.
 
In response to CP Rail's withdrawal, Doherty says the quickest way the planning group could facilitate a large number of casualties as had been planned was to get a bus.
 
"I think we've got a really good exercise based on a road accident with a bus just farther up the beach near the turn-off to Canoe Beach Park."