There will be a major train disaster at the rail bridge linking Fort Frances with Ranier.
It’s the scenario for a joint emergency exercise involving emergency personnel from Minnesota and Ontario.
It’s being called Operation Walleye.
Koochiching County’s Emergency Manager Willi Kostiuk says it’s been three years in the making.
“We’ve done a series of tabletops and exercises that have built up to (this). The full scale is a culmination of all of that training that we’ve done in the last three years,” says Kostiuk.
Over thirty-five different agencies will be involved in the August 26 event.
Kostiuk says it will be the largest full-scale emergency exercise ever to take place in Minnesota.
He says it has even received the attention of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, that plans to send representatives to observe.
Kostiuk says the exercise also allows them to test out communications between County and Fort Frances emergency personnel.
“We’re going to be testing our radio communications between American and the Canadian officials, which, I should say, it’s been done once before in Detroit. It’ll really be a show of how far we’ve come along in this community,” says Kostiuk.
Each one of the agencies involved will be evaluated.
Kostiuk says the outcome will help them better prepare for when a real emergency strikes.
“The most positive thing that comes out of this is that we’ve been working together for the last three years. All these different agencies, we’ve got a good rapport, good networking. So if something does come up, we know the people to call.”
