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Seven municipalities join regional emergency plan

Red Deer County to lead Regional Emergency Management Plan
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Red Deer County and six urban municipalities have joined forces on an emergency plan.

While communities routinely help each other out in emergencies the plan will formalize the partnership and sets the stage for additional joint training.

The plan is the result of an effort that began in early 2014 when county council and its counterparts from Sylvan Lake, Delburne, Elnora, Bowden, Innisfail and Penhold agreed to a regional emergency approach.

Assistant county chief administrative officer Ric Henderson said through its regional fire service there has already been a lot of co-operation among municipalities when disaster strikes.

The Pine Lake tornado in 2000 and major flooding in 2005 and 2013 are just a few of the incidents that pulled emergency responders together from throughout the county.

“We all suffer the same risks through our area so working together only makes sense.”

The province recently provided $40,000 to create a regional incident management team.

“Basically, we’re going to take the best of the best from each of our municipalities and come together as a team so that if something happens in Delburne we can draw people from Sylvan Lake, Innisfail, Bowden and the county and they’ll go and support Delburne.”