NWT updates emergency plan ahead of 2024’s flood and fire season

The NWT government has released an updated emergency plan following last year’s devastating wildfires and ahead of 2024’s flood and fire season.

A 70-page document, the plan deals with who does what – and who holds which powers – in the event of any emergency, rather than setting out specific checklists for every imaginable eventuality.

Don’t go looking for “what happens if Yellowknife has a wildfire and they can’t use the airport” or “Tulita has a fire and Délı̨nę can’t help but Norman Wells can.” That kind of scenario-based planning isn’t set out.

Instead, it’s things like what the community government does and what the GNWT is expected to do when any generic disaster strikes.

The GNWT faced criticism last summer over an apparent lack of preparation for some events, like the sudden loss of Yellowknife as an operational hub.

Non-profits that work with vulnerable people have said they lacked support as the city evacuated, while some Indigenous governments have said they and their communities were overlooked at points in the crisis.

The updated emergency plan revises some wording and includes some clarifications, but the meat of the plan has not changed since 2023 as that would require new legislation, none of which has been passed.

Communities in the NWT also have their own local emergency plans, which are separate from the updated territory-wide plan. Local plans can vary widely in scope and detail, depending on which community you look at. Those local plans are supposed to align with the territory-wide plan.

Communications upgrade

Even before last year, the GNWT said at a briefing on Monday, floods in 2021 and 2022 had “highlighted areas of the plan that needed adjustment and clarification.” Work to update the plan had begun before the 2023 fires.

“Some lessons learned were immediately apparent and easily implemented,” the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs – which runs emergency planning – said in a presentation.

Communications planning gets a “significant update,” the GNWT said.

“Communications has been definitely highlighted” by Indigenous governments at meetings of the Council of Leaders, Maca assistant deputy minister Sonya Saunders said.

“We have heard the concerns expressed during the evacuation last year and subsequent to that [and are] definitely looking at a communications protocol, and what kind of information people need,” Saunders said, referring to how the GNWT ensures Indigenous governments are included in emergency operations.

A section of the plan has been updated to more generally “better articulate the GNWT’s approach to emergency-related communications” and set out a preferred approach to communicating information.

Ensuring all people involved in emergency response understand their roles – from individuals to communities and other levels of government – is also a priority in the updated plan, as is clarity on what may be eligible for disaster assistance support when communities recover from an emergency.

Community governments need to “understand ahead of time what they may be reimbursed for,” said Emily King, Maca’s director of public safety.

Surge staffing

The updated plan doesn’t change any roles and responsibilities, nor the overall structure of NWT emergency management.

In other words, the new plan mostly tries to do a better job of explaining what should happen and how.

An example: Indigenous governments that aren’t also the designated local authority are now “encouraged to work with the local authority and participate” in local emergency management, Maca stated.

The plan now more clearly states that requests for assistance from higher levels of government should only happen once local resources and capacity have been exhausted. Guidelines for evacuating and hosting evacuees have been updated, partly to better reflect how reimbursement works for community governments in those circumstances.

The plan also “adds emphasis on the role of the individual,” instructing residents to have a household emergency plan, an emergency kit, and insurance where available.

Wording around how the GNWT staffs up in a crisis is also being tweaked.

“Changes have been made to how the GNWT pulls in surge staff from across departments and how we pull in subject-matter experts as necessary,” said King.

“That was a big issue for us last year … a big lesson learned.

“We’re developing job descriptions for incident management team positions and establishing protocols with human resources for the quick hiring and transfer of these staff.”

Training for surge staff is being developed.

Business continuity

GNWT departments are being given “risk scenarios to plan for” within their business continuity plans, King said. Those plans are the ones departments lean on when confronted by issues like Yellowknife evacuating.

“We need to ramp that activity up,” acknowledged Robert Tordiff, an assistant deputy minister at the Department of Executive and Indigenous Affairs, referring to business continuity planning that keeps departments sufficiently robust to carry out the emergency plan.

“We’re working collectively to coordinate those efforts so that we have a system that’s aligned.”

More: Read the GNWT’s emergency plan in full or get a quicker summary

King said Maca is also working to ensure agreements are in place that can quickly send logistical supports to communities when needed.

“We have a lot of tools available to assist community governments to improve capacity with emergency management,” she added, describing the likes of workshops and tabletop exercises carried out ahead of time to improve readiness.

Eleven workshops have been completed since last summer and two more are booked, she said.

A GNWT-wide review of 2023’s fires and evacuations continues, overseen by the Department of Executive and Indigenous Affairs. That review has not yet had the opportunity to feed into the NWT’s emergency plan.

After that, King said, broader changes that require a legislative update could be considered.

“Please investigate insurance. Get insurance where it’s available, including tenants’ insurance. Have a plan for your household and have an emergency kit prepared,” said King, delivering parting words of advice as Monday’s briefing closed.