By Liam Verster

Teepee Creek Flood

Equipment saved from Teepee Creek Fire Hall, temporary operating location established

Apr 22, 2020 | 3:19 PM

The spring runoff has been causing overland floods across the County of Grande Prairie, including one in Teepee Creek Tuesday night that flooded the fire hall.

Fire Chief Dan Verdun says thanks to quick actions by firefighters from Teepee Creek and Bezanson, members of the Regional Fire Service, and County Public Work Crews, critical equipment was taken out of the station and saved.

“The equipment that we utilize and our firetrucks etcetera, all of our guys PPE (personal protection equipment), all of that stuff was immediately pulled out of harm’s way and salvaged. So again, really quick action from the guys was able to keep us in business.”

Verdun says the water has since receded, but during the flood, a substantial amount of water, at the peak somewhere between 18 and 24 inches, made its way into the station. However, at this time Verdun does not know exactly how much damage the flood caused.

“I saw some very preliminary pictures today, and I mean you could definitely see demarcation lines on the wall, so what you would anticipate in a flood. We suspect we’ll have damage to things like drywall and maybe some electrical, but kind of too early to tell.”

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He says contractors are going through the fire hall and will report back on the full extent of the damage, what repairs are needed, and the associated costs.

In the meantime, the firefighters in Teepee Creek are still serving the public and responding to calls for service. Verdun says they were able to find a temporary location fairly quickly to set up their operations.

“We found a local storage area that we’re able to facilitate the fire trucks and keep them secure. We’ll be running out of that location temporarily, and again, even that time frame right now we’re uncertain of until we understand what the contractors can tell us about how long we’re going to be out of our fire hall.

Verdun adds that he will work with County Council in the coming days to determine the exact timeline for repairs on the fire station and possibly find a more suitable temporary base of operations for that time.

Verdun goes on to say that he’s proud of the crews in Teepee Creek who were able to quickly react and save the necessary gear.

“This is the same level of response I would expect if it was somebody else’s emergency, and it just turned out that it was our emergency, and they were able to react and default to training that at least minimized the impact of this event.”

He adds that this is a sort of an incident within an incident, and he’s also very impressed with the firefighters’ ability to adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has added more stress and safety concerns to their jobs and still be willing and able to serve the public.