Stuart Gradon/Calgary Herald HIGH RIVER, AB: JUNE 20, 2013 - A Nanton fire fighter (brought in to assist) wades through the flood water in High River, Alberta Thursday, June 20, 2013. The town of High River was hit by massive flooding Thursday. (Stuart Gradon/Calgary Herald) (For City story by TBA) 00046226A ORG XMIT: POS2013062018501343
Photograph by: Stuart Gradon/Calgary Herald , Postmedia News
In a candid interview with Postmedia News as he drove home to Lethbridge after a week in High River, where the worst of the flooding has occurred, Chief Brian Cornforth didn’t mince words as he slammed Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and his government’s response to the disaster, as well as its funding cuts to emergency preparedness.
“The federal government, they can just stay in Ottawa. They got in the way,” he said, singling out Towes, who visited High River on Wednesday.
“Coming into the site, it’s pretty hard to deal with those guys because they require a lot of resources to provide them security. Unless they’re directly in charge of the military and have a functional role, it’s really just posing.”
Cornforth said the federal government talks a good game on public safety but hasn’t been much of a partner. He said he’s sickened by near daily reports of misspending at the “highest levels of government” when funding is being cut for things like emergency preparedness and urban search and rescue.
Budget 2012 effectively slashed federal funding for the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program which has provided nearly $184 million to the provinces and territories for projects related to emergency preparedness, urban search and rescue and critical infrastructure protection since 1980.
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High River re-entry plan for residents to begin Saturday
HIGH RIVER, Alta. – Some residents of flood-ravaged High River, Alberta, will be allowed to return to their homes on Saturday while others could be waiting at least another month, officials announced Friday.
About 5,000 residents of the northwest part of town will be allowed to go back starting at noon, but Shane Schreiber of Alberta Emergency Management cautioned that not all of the 1,000 homes in the neighbourhood would be livable because of flood damage, and the phased re-entry of evacuees could take as long as five weeks for people from the most heavily devastated part of the town.
Rick Fraser, the associate minister of regional recovery and reconstruction for High River said that some residents of High River received the green light to return to their homes Saturday while others will be able to tour the community by bus.
“Our priority is to enable the return of residents to their homes in a safe and orderly fashion as quickly as possible, with a view to supporting further recovery and the long-term restoration of High River,” said Fraser.
Bus tours were to start Friday night for all residents so they could at least get an idea of the damage.
Also on Friday, the Alberta government declared a provincial state of emergency in High River and assumed responsibility for flood recovery and rebuilding operations, at the request of the town’s mayor.
READ MORE: Province takes over flood recovery, rebuilding in High River
Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths said there has been more significant infrastructure damage in the town than ever suffered anywhere else in the province in any kind of disaster.
Griffiths said power was starting to be restored, engineers were identifying which roads were safe and health and home inspectors were on the job.
Mayor Emile Blokland said the floods have been overwhelming and that it’s best if the province co-ordinates getting the community’s 13,000 people back into their homes.
“It’s become clear that the size and scope of this disaster is beyond anything we’ve ever seen before in Alberta,” Blokland said at the same update in High River.
Shreiber said it would be three to five days before the next group of homeowners would be allowed in, five to seven days for the group after that and three to five weeks for people from the hardest hit section.
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