THURSDAY, february 7, 2019 Vol. A-75, No. 6
Serving Fort St. John, B.C. and Surrounding Communities
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LIVIN’ WITH A LONG WAY TO GO
Four 9-1-1 calls misdirected, delayed during city house fire
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matt preprost editor@ahnfsj.ca
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When it comes to Canadiana, there are few storytellers like Del Barber, seen here performing at the Evangel Fireside Room in Fort St. John, Jan. 31, 2019.
9224 100 Street, Fort St. John, BC (250) 785-0463
The Manitoba songwriter’s blend of folk and country weaves together tales of farm life, motel trysts, and trips to the hardware store; of characters named Jungle Jim, and Peter and Jenny Lee, and even a delightful love song about his 65-year-old neighbour, Louise, who sings Willie Nelson
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while cleaning out her eaves troughs on a sunny afternoon. “She’s the kind of person who’s been through every fire of life you can imagine,” Barber says. “Despite it all, she has this hopeful disposition and I covet it.” Check out a clip of Barber’s performance at www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/arts-culture
‘It’s a big number... kind of a scary number’ With road building program nearly complete, city turns focus to old watermains matt preprost
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Fort St. John is nearly finished a decades-long program rebuilding more than 60 kilometres of roads to modern standards, but it has a growing, $190-million bill to replace 90 kilometres of aging asbestos concrete watermains — starting with the downtown core. Victor Shopland, the city’s general manager of integrated services, gave councillors a brief overview on the state of city infrastructure on January 28, and how much road building and upgrades have been done since 1995. The good news: the city has roughly nine kilometres of gravel roads left to finish rebuilding, down from 37 kilometres in the mid-90s, work that’s expected cost $40 million to finish over the next three to four years. Developers have added another 27 kilometres of new roads since 1995, and another nine kilometres of road have seen overlays over the last five years. All told, it’s equal to 190 lane kilometres of new roads and improvements that have come with storm sewers,
Remaining asbestos concrete watermains, in blue, as of 2018.
curbs, gutters, sidewalks, and streetlighting. “A lot of work has happened,” Shopland said. The construction has been financed through the city’s Peace River Agreement with the province, formerly called Fair Share, which has been compensating the city for industrial development outside its boundaries since the mid-90s. “It really speaks to how much we’ve done over the last 25 years, and really how much the Peace River Agreement has benefited the city,” Shopland said. “Fort St. John really was the poster child of infrastructure deficit.” But the bad news: the city has a lot of planning and budgeting to do to start replacing 90 kilometres of asbestos concrete wa-
termains over the next 20 years, Shopland said. “It’s a big number, kind of a scary number,” Shopland said. The first priority is replacing the 8.5 kilometres of AC pipe installed in the downtown core before 1955, which is at the end of its lifespan, and estimated to cost up to $18 million. The city has plans this year for extensive public consultations on rebuilding 100 Street between 96 and 110 avenues as part of that work. Replacing the watermains underneath 100 Street and 100 Avenue will see those roads fully excavated. “We are really focusing on 100 Street. That’s a major component of our work program for the next couple of years at least,” Shopland said. See WATERMAINS on A4
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Human error is to blame after four 9-1-1 calls were misdirected and delayed during a house fire last month in Fort St. John. The Peace River Regional District said Friday that a review into 9-1-1 call connection delays during the incident has been completed. The regional district, along with North Island 9-1-1, requested the review from EComm, which handles all initial 9-1-1 calls from the region from a call centre in Vancouver. According to the review, there were seven 9-1-1 calls made about the fire at the City Centre trailer court on January 8, six from cellphones, and one from a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) phone. Firefighters were called out within 25 seconds of the two first cellphone calls, but the calls after that got mired in misconnections, according to the review. The other four cellphone calls were received over the next five minutes: just one was properly redirected to North Island 9-1-1, which began handling fire dispatch services for the Peace Region in a controversial move in 2017. The other three cellphone calls were sent to the fire operations centre in Prince George by mistake, but were able to be redirected “without delay,” the review reads. The lone VoIP phone call bounced between at least four different call centres before reaching dispatchers — first, to a call centre outside the province. That’s because VoIP phones don’t connect directly with 9-1-1 centres in Canada, including E-Comm, according to the review. Those calls first go to third-party call centre outside the province to confirm a caller’s location. When the VoIP call was finally routed to E-Comm, it was answered and redirected to the Prince George fire operations centre, “an additional delay for this caller,” the review states. See 9-1-1 on A5
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