When emergencies stormed, John Rempel was a leading force of calm. Now, after decades of involvement in the community’s worst times, Rempel is retiring.
His final post with the public service was as Burns Lake’s emergency coordinator. Altogether, said Burns Lake’s fire chief and director of protective services Rob Krause, Rempel has worked to protect local residents for 34 years. When he joined Village staff in the winter of 1989, the emergency plan was 15 pages long and was written in 1950 - dangerously inadequate. From that modernization effort he then created the first emergency plan for the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako and the Kitimat-Stikine Regional District, plus many municipalities across the region.
Elaborate training exercises, searches for missing persons, floods, the 2006 snowstorm, the wildfires of 2018, and the killing of mayor and council…not really, but as part of a role-playing emergency rehearsal with actors and practicing professionals.
Crissy Bennett, the Terrace-based senior regional manager for Emergency Management BC, applauded Rempel’s widespread effects on the entire northern zone. She met Rempel in about 2001 when she was working in the planning profession and got handed an emergency preparedness project off the side of her desk, and “you took me under your wing and taught me everything about emergency management,” she said. “I want to offer some personal gratitude to you, personally, John, and helping me find a new career, the mentorship and guidance. I want to offer you my deep gratitude for that.”
She, along with Krause, presented Rempel with the certificate of appreciation issued by the Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness “for outstanding dedication, and service in support of the communities of the province of British Columbia.”
The applause was not just for occupying a position for a long time, it was clarified by several of the officials in attendance, but for being especially effective at a critical job on which all people rely whether they ever know that or not.
“John, on behalf of mayor and council, and the community, I would like to thank you for your many years of service and your dedication to our safety,” said Burns Lake mayor Henry Wiebe, who also presented Rempel with a token of appreciation.
Rempel said “it was fun, it was scary, and when I started this I didn’t really know what I was doing. I ran the emergency plan for the forestry (his prior job was with the Ministry of Forests office in Burns Lake) but this involved all kinds of other situations and it was learning on the fly.”
He expressed his appreciation for the other staff at the Village of Burns Lake who also played vital roles in handling past emergencies and preparing for future ones. He also warned mayor and council that he might still be involved in some training exercises in the future, so he might still get to “kill” them off, too. He had done it before.