Update: The mayor responded to the Global News investigation late Thursday afternoon, read the update here.
Editor’s note: Prior to publication of this story on May 9, 2019, Strathcona County council had called for an external review of all aspects of the county’s response to the November 2018 explosions as part of its standard procedure after such an event. This story has been amended to reflect that.
Questions are being raised about leadership at Strathcona County and the municipality’s level of preparedness for major emergencies approximately six months after a pair of explosions rocked a public parkade.
Internal emails, obtained by Global News through a Freedom of Information request, show county staff argued over the speed of public statements and was well aware of public backlash to its decision to release very limited information. The blast, which killed suspect Kane Kosolowsky, 21, left parts of the community centre closed to the public for months.
READ MORE: Man, 21, dead after blast led police to car packed with explosives in Sherwood Park
“It would be nice if you could share the nature of this. Hard to feel safe when there are reports of explosions, cops with rifles, and the county is talking like the building is closed for routine maintenance,” reads a tweet from one resident.
Watch below: Emails obtained by Global News through a Freedom of Information request reveal, for the first time, what went on behind the scenes the night of and days following the explosions in the county parkade. The documents indicate disagreement when information would be released to the public and an attempt to control social media. Julia Wong has part 1 of this Global News investigation.
The above tweet was written by Strathcona County resident Travis Harder, who said he sent it because the county was not acknowledging what happened at the parkade was out of the ordinary.
“It really did seem like a routine press release. It sounded a lot like, ‘Don’t park on the streets so we can blade the roads,’” he said.
“Someone saying, ‘Oh I was in the library, felt the building shake and someone run by saying, ‘Get out of the building now.’ That’s scary. That’s miles away from, ‘Well, we have reports of a fire.’”
LISTEN BELOW: Julia Wong on the Ryan Jespersen Show on 630 CHED
Harder said it felt as if the county was not ready for such an emergency or the communications required around an emergency.
“It just really felt like they weren’t really prepared for social media, which isn’t new. They weren’t prepared for something like Twitter or Facebook, which has been around for over 10 years,” he said.
“It does make me wonder if something were to happen again, would the communications around it be better?”
Security perspective
Damian Radcliffe, 41, has lived in Strathcona County for more than eight years. Radcliffe was in the military for 15 years and was deployed to Bosnia and Afghanistan. He now works in the field of security consulting as the president of Titanium Strategic.
Radcliffe was driving home at the time of the explosions and saw the emergency responders at the scene. He said his military background told him it was something more.
READ MORE: RCMP provide update on Sherwood Park explosions, motive remains unknown
He said, as the incident unfolded, he got his information from Facebook and Twitter, along with people calling him because of his security background.
“It was a very fluid incident so I understand there was a lack of information at that time,” Radcliffe said about communications in the hours after the explosion. However, that feeling changed the next day.
“Early the next day, I did start to get a little frustrated. Moreso because there was so little information.”
Radcliffe has two sons, aged six and eight.
“Sir, thousands of your residents are about to drop their children off at school. Is this issue geographically isolated?” reads a tweet he sent to the mayor.
Radcliffe said he wrote the tweet because it wasn’t clear how widespread the incident was and he wanted more information so he could make decisions for his family.
“With the way that things went and the lack of information, it fit certain patterns I’m familiar with. I just wanted to make sure it was geographically isolated and that we weren’t all about to drop our kids off at school.”
Radcliffe said he understood police may have been a bit more restricted in what they could say but feels the county could have done a better job.
“The RCMP’s mandate is one thing. The county’s mandate is different. They have some accountability to us in the community. I was getting rather frustrated with not being given any information, what was going on four blocks from my house,” he said.
Questions over preparedness
Radcliffe said the back-and-forth between the mayor and council, the executive team and the county communications team about releasing a statement to the public, which took several hours, suggests the county was ill-equipped.
READ MORE: Sherwood Park explosions caused $14M in damage
“Figuring that out on the fly in a dynamic, tactical environment isn’t really the time to do that,” he said.
“There should have been some preparedness between the mayor and the communications department about what are we going to release?”
One email sent by a communications specialist at the county appears to confirm concerns over preparedness.
“I think we all agree that we need to beef up our crisis communications team with experience so that they are comfortable ‘the next time,’” reads the email sent two days after the explosions.
For Radcliffe, the need to know ran deep.
“Somebody caused explosions in a public building while it was full of people. That’s a traumatic thing for people to go through,” he said.
Two days after the incident, the mayor received an email from a concerned citizen:
“I understand that there are things you certainly cannot release to us. I am not asking you to. What I am asking is for you to come out of hiding… We have not heard a word from you in nearly 24 hours. Our community is in crisis… It takes a simple look on Facebook to see that… Strathcona County needs its leader to be present.”
It isn’t clear whether anyone at the county responded to the email.
‘Did we elect the right mayor?’
Harder said more reassurances from the county the night of that residents were not in danger would have put his mind at ease.
But, in the absence of information, he said the county should have been expected that people would speculate. He admits the incident has made him question county leadership.
“It really made me wonder, did we elect the right mayor? His first big event since taking office and just completely dropped the ball in saying anything and seemed taken aback that we wanted information,” Harder said.
Radcliffe said he does not know if his family is still affected by the incident, but it has prompted one change in him.
“I do believe it definitely makes me be a little bit more critical and a little bit more interested in what goes on in our local politics,” he said.
Former Strathcona County councillor Carla Howatt, who is also the co-founder of How To Be Consulting Company, said it is unclear whether residents still have trust in the county after the November explosions.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know. I mean, I don’t think it’s helped. Let’s put it that way,” Howatt said.
Mayor responds
In response to residents’ concerns, Strathcona County Mayor Rod Frank said the county’s emergency preparedness is second-to-none.
“Sure, things can always be criticized but at the end of the day, we contained an incident. One individual took his life,” he said.
The mayor said he and his council called for an external review of the county’s response as part of their standard procedure after such an event. But he said he stands by the county’s actions.
“I wouldn’t change what we did, which was to have it turned into a police investigation,” Frank said.
“Now will the security findings or emergency response say that there might be some nuances or changes in particular approaches we took? Perhaps, and we’ll react to that.”
Frank had the following response when asked about worries over his leadership.
“I lived in the community since 1963. I take a lot of pride in it. My focus that evening was on safety. I’m really happy with the results,” he said.
WATCH MORE: Continuing coverage of the Strathcona County explosions
Email tips in confidence to reporter Julia Wong at julia.wong@globalnews.ca