Prince George, B.C. - Members of Alberta’s Emergency Management Team, and the Alberta Ministry of the environment have wrapped up a tour of the Prince George ice jam and flood mitigation efforts. The team is taking with it, ideas on how to handle ice jams, something which threaten Peace River and Fort McMurray.

Typically, those two Alberta communities experience ice jam issues in late March and early April, when chunks of ice block the flow during spring thaw. The ;ast time  either of those two  communities was impacted by an ice jam was 1997.  Since then,  many  with the Alberta Emergency  Management  team  who dealt with the 1997 crisis are no  longer with the team.  The visit to Prince George  offers an opportunity  for  those who have never dealt with  an ice jam  get a good picture of what can be done  and the issues that need to  be dealt with.

"We saw all the lessons learned, all the things that happend in Prince George.  It gave us an opportunity to look at it  as different tools for the emergency management tool box.  They may have worked in Prince George, but may not work in similar or different circumstance in Peace River or Fort McMurry"  says Ross Nairne, with Alberta Environment Support and Emergency Response Team.  Nairne says  it will be great to have all the ideas to put them on the table when there is a crisis.  

“We have an amphibex in Alberta, although we didn’t know about it until we came here” added Nairne.  The amphibex in Alberta is not as large a piece of equipment as the one Eco Technologies of New Brunswick brought to Prince George. In Peace River, there are ground seepage issues which are being handled by sump pumps.

Rhonda Brett, Emergency Response Officer with Alberta Environment “We will be heading back with the information and lessons learned here in {Prince George, what worked, what might be better in the future. We are going to meet with our Emergency Management Alberta staff and share the information we have gathered.”

The ideas being brought back include the amphibex, warm water treatment the use of gabion dikes and the construction of dikes.

It will all depend on the circumstances says Nairne, “No matter how well you plan, Mother Nature has a way of changing things.”