Regional plan in the works one year after train derailment north Saskatoon

One year ago, on Jan. 22, 2019, a Canadian National (CN) freight train derailed just north of Saskatoon.

Twenty-eight different agencies including the Saskatoon and Warman fire departments were involved in the 17-hour response.

On Tuesday, during a media conference at Fire Station No. 9 in Saskatoon, the director of emergency management, Pamela Goulden-McLeod, spoke about the importance of learning from each incident and continuously improving how the department responds to emergencies.

The key takeaway for her from last year’s train derailment was the importance of collaboration and co-ordination of the responses from all the different agencies that were present.

“One of our biggest learnings that has impacted us in the largest way is realizing that sometimes when events occur they impact more than just one municipality. So we have been working with some of our regional partners on more of a regional resilience plan,” said Goulden-McLeod.

“Each of our municipalities are required by legislation to have an emergency management plan and co-ordinator and what we are looking at is how do we work together to make sure that those plans are interdependent and that we work together on that.”

According to Goulden-McLeod, people in the province have proved to be really good at stepping up and working together on response plans for these kinds of incidents in the past.

“But in emergency management we always want to have a written plan and have something that we can look to to guide us through the process and that is what they are building right now,” she said.

Goulden-McLeod says the department is still in the beginning stages of that new plan.