Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jan 07/02) - In case of emergency, what does the Northwest Territories have in place?

Recently, the emergency measures organization -- a department under Municipal and Community Affairs -- was quickly putting together public information materials to deal with anthrax scares.

"That was a rather intense couple of days," said emergency measures co-ordinator Bernie Van Tighem.

"One of the first main things I did was help co-ordinate a multi-departmental response to handle suspicious packages in the mail."

Van Tighem has been on the job for about three months. Most days he is the emergency measures organization himself. When there is an active emergency other organizations, like the coast guard and fire departments, get involved.

Near his office on a high-level floor of the NorthwesTel building in Yellowknife, satellite phones and other electronic communication equipment cover a wall.

In the event of an emergency, such as an earthquake like the one that shook up Wekweti last month, Van Tighem determines the extent of damage and how to handle it.

Wekweti's earthquakes were minor, registering 4.2 and 4.6 on the Richter scale. Building damage can occur at 5.0.

Van Tighem said part of his job is also preparing for upcoming emergencies.

A potential one may be a pandemic flu expected to hit North America early this century.

"There is a contingency plan for all communities," he said.

In 1997 a new kind of flu in Hong Kong began killing chickens. Those working with them got very sick and some died. That prompted health officials across Canada to start planning, in the last two to three years, for a dangerous mutated influenza virus to hit.

"There is historical evidence that a major variant of the flu comes every 30 to 40 years and the last variant was in 1968," explained chief medical health officer Dr. Andre Corriveau.

He sat on a national planning committee that recognized the need to establish facilities to mass produce vaccines on short notice.

"If that kind of cycle was to repeat itself in the next five to 10 years we could expect to see a strain of flu that would make people much sicker."

At the community level, plans have included ideas about quarantines, make-shift morgues and prioritizing who gets the vaccine first.

Corriveau said the North is both a good and bad situation since from here one would be able to see the flu coming but the health-care resources in the North are strained.

"In a crisis situation we would probably only get a little bit of the vaccine at a time," he said.

"It is quite different in the North because if you are the person who drives the water trucks and sewage trucks here, these are essential services and you don't want those people to get sick."

"We need to tackle the hurdles not typical to southern efforts," Van Tighem added about all emergencies. "There are 33 different communities that are required to have plans and we have to help them maintain and exercise those plans."