Identifying lessons learned from flood response and recovery actions to improve future emergency efforts

Hay River Spring Flood After-Action Review

In 2022, flooding due to spring break up on the Hay River resulted in devastation across the Town of Hay River, the K'atl'odeeche First Nation reserve, and neighboring communities in the Northwest Territories. The floods caused widespread destruction of roads, rail tracks, and buildings as well as damage to utilities and evacuation and displacement of more than 4,000 residents.

In light of this and previous flooding events in the region, the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) retained our team to conduct an after-action review of the response and recovery activities that took place following the floods. Our Ready and Resilient Communities team and our Northwest Territories/Yukon Planning team joined forces to engage with GNWT personnel, first responders, Town of Hay River government officials, and the community.

Following a thorough data review and public engagement, we prepared a final after-action report (AAR) that identified the observations and lessons learned from the preparedness and flood response. We developed an additional AAR to address lessons learned from recovery-related activities.

Ultimately, these AARs presented recommendations to enhance preparedness, response, and recovery functions in advance of future incidents. GWNT will implement these recommendations and report on progress using an improvement plan and associated action tracker developed by our team.