After some Municipality of Jasper employees took part in a disaster training course last week, staff at the Fitzhugh asked ourselves, “What role do we play in an emergency situation?”

As information providers, a newspaper can help spread the word if and when a dangerous situation grabs hold of the town. 

As a start, the Fitzhugh has developed what’s called a black site as part of our website. That means that when an emergency is taking place, visitors to our website will see a page with our logo, information updates, and instructions from officials, instead of our regular home page.

To give you an idea what that would look like, we’ve put our black site online temporarily. It can be viewed at www.fitzhugh.ca/disaster.html. In the case of an emergency, this site will appear as our regular home page, at the address www.fitzhugh.ca, and the site’s typical features will not be available.

Fire Chief Greg Van Tighem said using as many avenues as possible to share information from officials is a good idea. “Anytime there’s something going on like that, the more ways you get the word out the better,” he said.

Van Tighem said the idea of a black site has been considered for the town’s website, but certainly could be applied to the Fitzhugh’s as well. The types of emergencies that this type of warning information system would be used for range from a wildland fire, which could mean an evacuation, a hazardous materials leak or spill, or a pandemic, such as a sickness.

In the future, the Fitzhugh will work toward developing other ways it can use its assets to help the town when in need.

For more information about our black site or other initiatives, contact the Fitzhugh at 780-852-4888.