EDMONTON -- The City of Edmonton has activated its emergency operations centre ahead of a Wednesday morning meeting of city council's emergency advisory committee.
Mayor Don Iveson says councillors could vote to declare a local state of emergency, but that it's not certain that will happen.
"It's not a foregone conclusion that the city will need to, or the circumstances warrant, the declaration of the state of local emergency," Iveson said.
"That option is always available to us and the situation is changing very quickly."
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The meeting is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. with up to five in-person attendees with the rest of council joining remotely in an effort to comply with social distancing health recommendations.
Iveson told reporters he joined a conference call with other Canadian mayors where they expressed concern about how their cities' homeless population would endure the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
"All of us are are increasingly concerned about protecting our most vulnerable citizens. We feel there is an urgent need for an injection of resources."
Iveson said a planned call with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was postponed until Wednesday.
EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTRE
The city's emergency operations centre was activated at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon.
The centre is a dedicated facility that aims to coordinate communication between emergency services including fire crews, police, as well as power and utilities companies.
“It’s a bit like the bridge of the starship Enterprise," said Iveson. "The idea is you have all the department heads and decision-makers all able to share the same information.
"Physically, it's designed to make sure all the information comes in, decision is made, and the information goes back out."
The centre is staffed by the city and is typically activated between four and 14 times each year with the last time being on New Year's Eve, according to Deputy Fire Chief Rob Squire.
Iveson notes the centre is typically used to be open for a period of days but now expects to be open for a matter of weeks if not months.
“This will be a little bit different because it will have to be activated for the ongoing."
Alberta confirmed 23 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, the largest day-over-day increase the province has seen. There are 97 cases of the virus across Alberta as of that time.
