The City of St. Albert staffers have received a national award for their use of statistics and technology to prepare this city for disaster.
Public Safety Canada gave the City of St. Albert an Emergency Management Exemplary Service Award at a ceremony in Ottawa on Feb. 26, 2025. The award is a partnership between Canada’s federal, provincial, and territorial governments, and recognizes excellence in the various fields of emergency management. Awards are given out in five categories, one of which is resilient communities.
The City of St. Albert was one of the 16 winners in the resilient communities. Singled out for the award were city employees Brian Carabine, Alice Cerqueira, Denise Isbister, Shawn Kirkpatrick, Marci Ng, Cara Parenteau, and Kendra Verheul, who work under emergency management manager Mark Pickford.
In a media release, the city said this award recognized its work in several tech-related projects.
The “Know Your Zone” initiative used ArcGIS mapping technology to create what is currently the only interactive evacuation/shelter-in-place map in Alberta. The map divides St. Albert into colour-coded zones to indicate if people in any one area should evacuate (red), prepare to evacuate (orange), shelter in place (yellow), or behave as normal (green) at any given time. The map uses census data to help city crews understand the demographics of each evacuation zone.
Crews also set up a new mass emergency notification system to improve co-ordination during emergencies. The new rapid damage assessment too uses census and tax data to identify damaged properties and displaced populations during a disaster.
The Gazette will have more on these initiatives later this week.
