NDP planning to push ahead with emergency response hub

The NDP government says it is making good progress on a new $125-million Provincial Operations Centre that will serve as main hub for managing emergencies like the Fort McMurray wildfire.

The facility is to be built at the Edmonton Research Park in the city’s south side, replacing the current operations centre that is housed in an aging, undersized building in a northwest industrial area.

“Even though we have one of the best emergency response systems in the country, there is always more that we can do,” Municipal Affairs Minister Shaye Anderson said Friday in an emailed statement.

“The new Provincial Operations Centre will put us in an even better position to prepare for, mitigate and respond to disasters. It will be another tool we can use to keep Albertans safe.”

The Alberta Emergency Management Agency is overseen by Anderson’s ministry.

Building a “state of the art” operations centre for the agency was one of the recommendations of a review of the response to the Fort McMurray wildfire in 2016.

The centre was particularly busy during that lengthy catastrophe, as well as during the 2013 flooding in southern Alberta. But outside of such emergencies, it is still staffed 24 hours a day to monitor conditions around the province and jump into action if a potential disaster occurs.

The current single-storey facility in Edmonton’s Dominion Industrial Park is believed to be about 50 years old, although the emergency management agency only began using it in 2003.

The size of the agency has grown considerably in the last 15 years, which means some staff have to work in other locations in the city.

Building a new facility will allow more employees to work in the same space and better equip the agency with up-to-date technology to manage emergencies, the ministry’s statement said.

“The new Provincial Operations Centre will be built with flexible, modular and resilient spaces ... and can be used as a training centre when not needed for emergency response,” says a description of the project included in Alberta Infrastructure’s 2017-18 annual report.

A design contract for the centre is nearing completion, while a construction contract is expected to be awarded later this year. The centre is tentatively pegged to open sometime in 2021.

The Edmonton Research Park is located at 23 Avenue and Parsons Road, just east of South Edmonton Common.

The new Provincial Operations Centre will put us in an even better position to prepare for, mitigate and respond to disasters.