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Duczek / RDEK communications stellar
e-KNOW editorial
The recent flooding events in the Regional District of East Kootenay (RDEK) were among the most severe crisis situations to hit southeastern British Columbia in the past couple of decades.
The RDEK is a large, triangular area and flooding was occurring in all three corners, with states of emergency declared. Roads were closed; homes were being inundated; people were being stranded; communities were evacuated and the seriousness of the crisis rose with the creek, river and lake waters.
The scramble and race was on all over the region on June 20.
Mark Creek rose by several feet overnight, threatening Kimberley with a second straight year of flooding; homeowners in the Morrison Subdivision found themselves sandbagging for a second year running as Kimberley Creek billowed in size again.
The riverside commercial area in Elkford had water lapping at the doors, as the Elk River literally roared under the bridge leading to the mine.
The watch was on in Sparwood, with a trailer court evacuated and Michel Creek eating under Highway 3 east of town. Dozens of homeowners in Hosmer watched as their properties became submerged. Hundreds of volunteers raced to fill and place sandbags.
Fairmont and Cold Spring Creeks overshot their banks at Fairmont Hot Springs and rampaging Dutch Creek flooded, forcing the evacuation of Hoodoos Resort Campground.
The worry and watch was on in Canal Flats, Invermere and Windermere, as torrential rains continued to fall, adding to the annual freshet.
The Kootenay River, like the Elk River, was stem-to-stern with forest debris of all scale and bridges were pounded by recently uprooted trees scraping beneath. A wash at the Springbrook Bridge at Skookumchuck, combined with washouts in Kootenay National Park forcing the closure of Highway 93 and the terrible flooding at Canmore, Alberta, forcing the closure of the Trans-Canada Highway, meant the Columbia Valley was cut off from its vital summer tourist traffic, not to mention its supply line was severed, causing a gasoline shortage and a run on goods in stores.
And then Wasa Lake started a long, slow rise – for a second straight year – to cap off the two-week period of crisis in the region, with it all compounded by a pair of missing person incidents where young men from Canal Flats, Alberta and Jaffray lost their lives. Additionally, backcountry roads in the Rockies and Purcells were torn to shreds from washouts and landslides – forcing numerous rescues.
While this was happening, the worst flooding in memory was occurring across the Rockies in southern Alberta – and the jarring images of homes being washed away and towns completely flooded added to the pending sense of doom in the region.
E-KNOW experienced record numbers of readers during this period. On June 20, more than 11,200 individuals came to the website seeking information about the flooding. The explosion of traffic crashed our site for eight minutes.
Over the ensuing week, our Facebook numbers exploded – from an average reach of about 8,000 to more than 85,000.
I am not bragging. I am trying to point out the importance of timely communication during periods of crisis. It is vital in order to keep people as calm as possible, to organize an attack against the threat, mobilize people and resources and to boost safety.
And that is why we are today saluting the Regional District of East Kootenay for its exemplary communications work during the flooding crisis.
To say that Communications Director Loree Duczek went above and beyond is to do a disservice to the quality of work she performed during this time.
She provided updates throughout the course of the days, including warnings she was ABOUT to provide updates, so we’d be ready to turn them around in e-KNOW and on Facebook and Twitter.
Loree’s communication efforts, including a brilliantly considered and work-heavy regional update/snapshot that could be quickly published that gave an up-to-the-moment look at what was happening throughout the RDEK, were phenomenal. She was also available around the clock and Lord help you if you didn’t double check outside information with her!
Loree cut her teeth in the emergency communications realm during the horrible fire year 2003. Her work then helped earn her a citizen of the year honour in Cranbrook.
I have been a journalist in this region since 1991 and covered most every major crisis in that time and I can tell you, without falter or pause to consider others, that I have never worked with a communications officer who performed their tasks with such professionalism and competence.
To provide such accurate and important information, Loree and her staff had to be in the field (lake). Rubber boots and rain coat and all, Loree hit all three corners of the region, assessing situations, organizing communications with the residents and relaying information to necessary departments. It is good for us all to know that our regional government has such competent people – not just Loree but all the key administrative staff to the boots-on-the-ground folks – from the fire chiefs and their departments, the public works crews to all the volunteer groups and individuals who broke their backs helping their friends and neighbours.
Crisis brings out the best in people. It certainly brought out the best in the RDEK and Loree Duczek.
Governments of all levels take endless volleys of abuse – much of it deserved. It is only fitting and fair to point out when they meet expectations and far surpass them – as the RDEK did with its communications work between June 19 and the first week of July.
The RDEK has been a leader among local governments when it comes to communications for a decade or more. It really became a communicative entity when Loree came aboard. She began assembling monthly board of directors’ meeting reports, isolating key aspects of each month’s meetings and boiling them down into tidbits of information. Media can either publish the info as is, giving people an idea about what the regional government is up to, or they can take the tidbits and expand upon them, making feature news stories from them.
Other governments around the region have followed suit in recent years, most notably Fernie and Sparwood.
So please join us in saluting Loree and the RDEK (from the directors to the newest staff members); great work and thanks, again.
For another perspective please see: https://www.e-know.ca/news/regional-officials-laud-emergency-workers/
Ian Cobb/e-KNOW
