Emergency crews nearly did not get calls for help during a fatal house fire in Mackenzie this week.
On Tuesday morning, a house fire killed twin children very shortly after phone lines were restored connecting the town to 911.
The emergency service was cut off after a vehicle took out a utility pole at about 5:15 p.m. on Monday near the intersection of
Highway 39 and the West Parsnip Forest Service Road (WPFSR).
"The pole was not struck; it was overhead wires across the road that got caught and the pulling force of that broke the pole off," said Mackenzie RCMP detachment commander Sgt. Sydney Lecky.
"Those wires ended up blocking Highway 39 and the WPFSR, which happens to be our two points of egress from the community, so if you wanted to get in or out of town, you couldn't.
"The power lines were active so we had to shut the roads down and we had significant back-ups of traffic."
The driver failed to remain at the scene and police are now
investigating.
Crews quickly fixed the downed lines, so the drivers' negligence did not impede calls for help.
"When the 911 calls came in for the fire, everything was working properly," said North District RCMP spokeswoman
Const. Lesley Smith.
Lecky said utility crews initially told him lines would be fixed by Tuesday afternoon, but they completed the work several hours ahead of schedule.
"There were no emergencies called in to our office line during that time. We had one noise complaint; that was the only call for service," said Lecky.
"We don't get a lot of 911 calls and if we got none during that period, that would not be a surprise, so it was quite a coincidence that this major emergency did take place almost at the same time."
Lecky stationed someone at the detachment's landline in case anyone tried to contact police. The Mackenzie fire department, hospital and other stakeholders were part of a contingency plan that
ultimately was not needed.
-- Peebles, Citizen staff
