The city's emergency management department is preparing several training scenarios this year to ensure city staff are prepared during a variety of potential emergencies. Staff will prepare for the upcoming Summer Special Olympic Games, as well as an active shooter situation and an overland flooding simulation.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
bmiller@medicinehatnews.com
As part of this year’s emergency management plan the city will conduct several training programs and exercises for staff to ensure proper functioning systems and processes that allow collaboration between departments and community partners during large-scale emergencies.
On Tuesday, members of the emergency advisory committee were provided a detailed presentation of work the department has conducted in 2025 and training exercises planned for this year.
Included in those exercises is a tabletop simulation with Games organizers that will address situations such as extreme heat or contagious illness that could occur in August during the 2026 Special Olympics Canada Summer Games.
The city is also planning to conduct a full-scale exercise in May to simulate an overland flood response that will include deployment of physical walls and flood prevention infrastructure.
Additionally, the city says it is working with the Medicine Hat Police Services, Medicine Hat Fire and Emergency Services, Alberta Health Services EMS and the 911 call centre to conduct a full-scale active exercise at Co-op Place.
It will consist of a tactical team running several drills and will conclude with a full-scale exercise with more than 100 participants.
The city will also update its Emergency Social Services Plan in 2026, which in conjunction with Redcliff and Cypress County provides essentials like food, shelter and clothing when residents are forced to evacuate.
Specifically, the city wants to provide clarity around what essentials it provides to residents when they are evacuated.
The city is also in the process of finishing upgrades to an Incident Command Deployment Trailer, which it plans to deploy this year.
This emergency management supplies trailer will be used to expedite transportation of equipment required to effectively establish a formal Incident Command Post during any disaster response.
The city uses a four-level scale to rate severity of emergency situations, ranging from daily situations handled by local authorities to full-blown emergencies requiring an immediate response.
According to the report Medicine Hat experienced a pair of ‘level two’ incidents in 2025 with potential to escalate into a more serious situation.
Merrick Brown, association director of emergency management and corporate learning, says at this level staff and officials are ready to respond if needed.
“The closest thing that I can compare it to is when we just start getting a little bit nervous,” said Brown. “Something is not quite right and we need to put certain city staff, including executives, essentially on notice. Something may happen.”
The first level-two incident occurred last June during high streamflow and weather patterns that were identified by the River Forecast Centre as having potential to cause an overland flood up to as large as in 2013.
“So our job then was to put all city departments on notice and stay in communication with the River Forecast Centre so that we are ready to respond if something were to occur,” explained Brown.
“Nothing did occur but through this process we were able to work with the River Forecast Centre and verify their improvements that they did for further communication to us and it worked really well.”
The second level-two incident occurred near the end of 2025 when winds reached more than 100 km/h across southern Alberta on Dec. 18, causing damage to infrastructure and power outages throughout the region.
Brown says data collected from annual risk assessment shows wind speeds becoming a more prevalent problem in Medicine Hat.
“That’s something that we do know in our risk assessment that we do each year, even if you look at the past, perhaps, three months or four months, we have had an incredibly windy winter and this is something that is expected to continue in the future.”
Brown says winter wind storms are rare in Medicine Hat and the decision to classify the event as a level-two municipal emergency was due to outside conditions.
“We had a blizzard, it was cold outside. Power was going out, so you think of those cascading impacts that can occur. We needed to be ready should the power go out for longer, keep in mind it’s minus-15 degrees outside.”
Brown says during that wind storm his department was working with the power plant to ensure backup electricity plans were in place, as well as making sure all emergency social services were ready to be implemented to keep people warm if power did go out at any point.
The department was also requested to provide emergency support during wildfire evacuations in Alberta last July, as well as aiding with evacuation planning for Thompson residents during Manitoba wildfires last June.
City staff completed three emergency simulations exercises in 2025, including a gas release from a wellhead, an aqueous ammonia release that required a full fire and hazmat response and a simulation of a mass influx of evacuees from another community.
