If you happen to spot a lot of emergency vehicles Thursday morning along the Trans Canada Highway, east of Richer, do not be alarmed.

Centra Pipelines is spreading the word of a mock disaster taking place about twenty kilometres east of Richer, beginning at 9 am.

Mike Pelletier is Director of Pipeline Operations. He says every few years they will work with area emergency response agencies to conduct an exercise involving their pipeline. This time around, it happens in the Spruce Siding area. The scenario is that a contractor hit the pipeline, creating a leak. After a call to 911, emergency personnel in the area respond to the call.

According to Pelletier, numerous stakeholders will take part, including the Reynolds Fire Department, RCMP, TC Energy and Reynolds Emergency Management.

Pelletier says the exercise will include a simulated evacuation, even though there are no residences in that area. The Reynolds Fire Department wil be setting up an Incident Command post near the site, while fire trucks and RCMP will be doing traffic control.

"The RCMP will just be simulating closing off traffic on the highway, they will still allow traffic to go through," he says.

Pelletier says motorists driving in that area will notice a lot of flashing lights from police and fire and he asks that nobody sticks around to watch the exercise.

Planning this mock disaster started in early 2019 and Pelletier says it takes a lot of meetings to pull it off.

He notes fortunately Centra Pipelines has never had an incident like this. Yet, he says these exercises are very helpful as they allow all stakeholders to get to know each other and to learn how emergency response agencies respond to these types of incidents.