When Glennda Gould fled her home in Manitoba’s wildfire-stricken Lac du Bonnet area this week, it wasn’t because she’d gotten a notification telling her to evacuate — it was because the smoke had finally gotten so bad she felt like she couldn’t stay any longer.
Gould said she was aware of the nearby fire. Before she left, she was outside watering her lawn, trying to keep the ground wet enough to protect her home if the flames approached. But she thought she’d get some notice when the blaze was getting close enough to become a threat to her.
“I was expecting, actually, someone to come to the door and say it was time to leave, or the phone to go off through the emergency notification service that we’ve subscribed to,” Gould said. “It didn’t happen.”
Gould says her experience raises concerns about whether the Rural Municipality of Lac du Bonnet’s local emergency response let people know to evacuate quickly enough, and whether the provincial emergency notification system should have been used.
“I think it’s a learning opportunity,” she told host Marcy Markusa in a Friday interview with CBC’s Information Radio. “I think we rely far too much on things like Facebook and email, and not everybody has that…. I wasn’t the only one who said that they didn’t get a notification to evacuate.”
Loren Schinkel, the municipality’s reeve, said the community posted alerts on social media, used the local emergency notification system Gould said she expected would alert her, and in some cases sent people door-to-door to issue evacuation orders.
But Schinkel also noted just how quickly the Lac du Bonnet fire spread — and the fact that some areas in the community have poor cellphone reception.
“So is that the fault? You know, I can’t tell you that,” he said Friday. “At the end of this, we’re going to sit down and we’re going to do a very thorough, fulsome review of what took place here. If we can do something better, by all means, we’re all for that.”
The Lac du Bonnet fire — which as of Friday afternoon was estimated to be over 4,000 hectares in size — has turned deadly, taking the lives of a couple who reportedly got trapped at a family home in the municipality and were discovered on Wednesday morning.
WATCH | Manitoba couple killed in wildfire identified:
Sue and Richard Nowell have been identified as the couple killed in the Lac du Bonnet, Man., wildfire. Four communities have been evacuated as several out-of-control fires burn across the province. Dry conditions are making it hard for crews to gain ground.
Schinkel said Friday the fire had been contained to the same boundaries that were established on Tuesday, when the blaze was first reported, and crews were dealing with hot spots to ensure it doesn’t flare up again.
Why no provincial emergency alert?
When asked Thursday why Manitoba’s emergency alert system — which sends alerts to radio, TV and cellphones —wasn’t used to let people know about the wildfire evacuations, Premier Wab Kinew said using that tool “has been part of the discussion,” but it wasn’t ultimately employed because it wasn’t part of the municipality’s emergency plan.
“When we talk about the response, we’re talking about following a plan that has been set up and drilled and practised. And because of that prep work, we don’t necessarily want to change, I guess, the M.O., unless there’s a serious … call for that to happen,” Kinew told reporters at a news conference.
“So I can tell you that the idea of putting out an emergency alert was part of the discussions that we’ve had. But in the first instance, we go with the plan that’s been drilled locally.”
Shelley Napier, managing director of Napier Emergency Consulting, said she thinks the premier’s explanation makes a lot of sense — municipal governments are “very aware” of what’s going on in their own communities, and it’s not necessarily a great idea to have a higher level of government come in to overrule local plans, which are approved every year by the province, she said.
“They are stringent plans. They are tested, they are exercised, they are updated every single year,” said Napier, who was previously a regional emergency manager in Manitoba’s Interlake area before retiring from a 33-year career with the provincial Emergency Management Organization.
“There isn’t a community that wants another level of government dictating stringent, ‘you must do this, you must do that’ [rules]. And the government doesn’t work like that with the municipalities.”
While that alert system may not have been part of Lac du Bonnet’s emergency plan, Reeve Schinkel said Friday he would be open to using “anything that benefits communication” in the future.
“Our hearts go out to the people that feel that, you know, we’ve failed them,” Schinkel told Markusa on Friday. “And if we can improve in some fashion, we’ll certainly do that.”
Having a plan one thing — knowing it another
Lac du Bonnet evacuee Michelle Potter said she tried to grab as many things as she could before leaving her home in the area this week, not knowing if it would still be standing when she was allowed to return.
Potter said she soon realized just how ill-prepared she was for that kind of emergency. Her daughter, Emily Potter, was in a similar situation, and said she’d encourage people to have “a more extensive evacuation plan” than they did.
WATCH | Lac du Bonnet residents recount evacuation as wildfire raged nearby:
Evacuees Michelle Potter and her daughter Emily Potter recount fleeing the deadly wildfires in Manitoba. ‘There’s not even any rubble left,’ said Michelle. ‘It was fearful. It was extremely scary.’
“I know that I didn’t have any plans, and I think you need to be tapped in with your … local RM and your local town, and know what’s going on at all times,” Emily said on CBC News Network this week.
“Nobody plans for something like this to happen, but you need to be able to get out quickly.”
Emergency consultant Napier said while it’s important for communities to have solid plans, what’s crucial is reviewing and practising those plans, so municipal staff and residents actually know what to do the moment they’re thrust into an emergency.
“An emergency plan is simply words on paper in a binder. It’s not going to keep you safe,” Napier said.
“We can’t predict when we’re going to get another large-scale tornado. We can’t predict when the weather is going to be like this, and it kicks up so hot. But I know this from my career in emergency management, that being prepared is going to save your life.”
Some Manitobans say they never got a message telling them it was time to evacuate due to wildfires in eastern Manitoba. But others say it came too late.
