Last week Sunshine Coast search and rescue volunteers practiced delivering emergency evacuation notices in Wilson Creek and learned the basics of assisting with long-line helicopter rescues on steep mountainsides.
Tuesday evening, Sept. 15, search and rescue volunteers gathered on the Tsawcome Band lands in Wilson Creek and went through an evacuation notification drill, as they would for a flood, forest fire or earthquake, Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) emergency program co-ordinator Bill Elsner said.
"Search and rescue volunteers, using maps, went door-to-door and actually hand-delivered a notice that said exercise on it," Elsner said, noting that residents had been informed beforehand about the drill. "The message is to always to be mindful of the fact that you might need to leave your home on short notice and you should have an idea of what you would like to take and where it's located. Have a grab-and-go kit so that you can have a little bit of food and clothing and maybe some copies of your important papers and medications, spare eyeglasses, all those kind of things, ready to go."
Search and rescue notified approximately 100 homes, marking them with coloured flags to indicate, for example, which houses had been notified, and where residents were out. And as in a real disaster scenario, the message contained a warning.
"If you are ordered to evacuate and you refuse, you can't expect any responders to put their lives at risk to come back and get you," Elsner said. "There isn't going to be anybody."
Elsner said the exercise went well, and was carried out in approximately an hour -faster than expected.
Then on Thursday evening, Sept. 17, search and rescue gathered for a long-line helicopter rescue information session with Tim Jones, search manager with North Shore Rescue.
Long-line helicopter rescue techniques are used for rescues in canyons, gullies and on very steep mountainsides. Jones gave a presentation outlining how the rescues are carried out, highlighting some basic ways in which search and rescue volunteers can facilitate a long-line rescue on the ground. He encouraged Sunshine Coast search and rescue to call in helicopter support at the outset of a rescue operation where a long-line might be needed.
Robert Allan, public relations director for Sunshine Coast search and rescue, said the information session taught "preliminaries" for ground support in helicopter rescues, but that he's hoping funding can be found for local search and rescue to do more extensive long-line rescue training.
