Proceedings, International Snow Science Workshop, Breckenridge, Colorado, 2016

HOW DOES A REMOTE ARCTIC SETTLEMENT PREPARE FOR HANDLING FATAL ACCIDENTS WHEN OUTSIDE ASSISTANCE IS FAR AWAY? - FOCUS ON ORGANIZED AVALANCHE RESCUE IN REMOTE AREAS.

Martin Indreiten1,2,3*and Christian Svarstad3,4

1The University Centre in Svalbard, Longyearbyen, Norway 2Arctic Safety Centre, Longyearbyen, Norway 3Longyearbyen Red Cross, Longyearbyen, Norway 4The Governor of Svalbard - Police Department, Longyearbyen, Norway

ABSTRACT: Longyearbyen, located at 78°N, is a small town on the west side of Spitsbergen, a part of the Svalbard archipelago in the high arctic. The rescue service on the island is a part of the Norwegian rescue service. Norwegian rescue services are carried out through cooperation between government agencies, voluntary organizations and private companies who have resources appropriate for rescue scenarios. In December 2015 a fatal avalanche hit 11 of the houses in Longyearbyen and killed two people. A mas- sive local rescue operation was organized. The operation involved government agencies, voluntary organizations and private companies. The combined effort of these recourses limited the consequence of the accident. Outside assistance arrived from mainland Norway on the scene after 12 hours. This paper describes how the local rescue service is organized and point to how experience from the avalanche accident will be used to improve emergency preparedness for urban avalanches in the future.

KEYWORDS: Avalanche rescue, emergency preparedness. rescue organization

1. INTRODUCTION Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean under Norwegian sovereignty. Svalbard sits north of mainland Norway, it is approximately halfway between Norway and the North Pole (Fig.1). The largest island is Spitsbergen and is roughly equal to the size of Switzerland. Svalbard’s main settlement, Longyearbyen, is located on the west side of Spitsbergen at 78° North and 15° East. The town is located in Longyeardalen (Longyear valley) on the shore of Adventfjorden. This is the northernmost town in the world with a permanent civilian population, with a little over 2 000 inhabitants. The town is multinational with more than 47 different nationalities present. 29% of the population is made up of foreign citizens. The settlement has a turnover close to 20 % annually, meaning statistically that during a five year period nearly all inhabitants have changed (Annual report 2015, Community council) Avalanche hazards and accidents are well known in the community. In the last 15 years there have Fig. 1: Svalbard’s location in the world (circle). been several backcountry avalanche accidents with fatalities (snowmobiling) during the winter season. There is also a long record of historical avalanche accidents. In June 1953, two people * Corresponding author address: were killed and two houses destroyed in a slush The University Centre in Svalbard, P.B 156, avalanche coming down the side valley 9171 Longyearbyen, Norway Vannledningsdalen. Afterwards protective ridges phone: +47 976 25 884 and snow fences were constructed, and a caterpil- e-mail: [email protected]

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lar is used before the onset of snowmelt to create managing serious or major incident and a deep channel in order to drain meltwater in the crises within that particular field. valley. However in 1989 and 2012 slush ava- • Principle of similarity: Day to day organiza- lanches released in Vannledningsdalen; the 2012 tion will, to the extent possible, be similar slide took out a pedestrian overpass in the end of to organization during serious or major in- the Valley. Cornice fall avalanches from the moun- cident and crises. tains are another well-known avalanche hazard for • Principle of subsidiarity: All serious or ma- the settlement (Eckerstorfer 2012). jor incident and crises will be managed at In the period from January 2009 to January 2015 the lowest possible level. (PEPS 1, 2011) five people have died in backcountry avalanches in Svalbard along with many other narrow escapes The Governor of Svalbard is one of the 13 RSC in (NGI.no, Varsom.no). Despite the history of ava- Norway. Over the last years The Governor has lanche accidents in the backcountry and known been responsible for approximately 75 search and avalanche hazards around the settlement, no ava- rescue missions. The variety of the missions is lanche warning system has ever been established. wide: glacier accidents, avalanches, snowmobile accidents, accidents at sea (passenger vessels and fishing boats). 2. NORWEGIAN SEARCH AND RESCUE SERVICE 3. EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS IN Norwegian rescue services are carried out through LONGYEARBYEN cooperation between government agencies, voluntary organizations and private companies who The search and rescue organizations in Long- have resources appropriate for rescue services. yearbyen use considerable resources on emergency preparedness. Svalbard is in a remote area The Joint Rescue Coordination Centres (JRCC) of the world and the rescue service is forced to have the overall operational responsibility during handle accidents and crises on their own most of search and rescue operations. The operations are the time. It takes time to get outside support from coordinated either directly from one of two Joint mainland Norway. It would take more than six Rescue Coordination Centres on mainland Nor- hours to get rescue resource on site. The Svalbard way or through one of 13 rescue sub centres society is allocated extra funds for rescue and (RSC) including Svalbard. emergency preparedness because it is known that assistance is far away. A lot of efforts are put into Normally, the JRCC supervise and coordinate res- education and training. Several big exercises are cue operations at sea and in the air, while rescue completed each year, with a special focus on win- operations on land are normally coordinated by ter operations (Fig 2). Exercises where coopera- the affected police district´s local sub-centre, un- tion between government agencies, voluntary less the JRCC decides otherwise. The JRCC´s organizations and private companies, is also an main tasks are to receive distress signals, make important part of the training. situation assessments, implement various measures, and supervise the subsequent search and rescue operations. The expression rescue sub-centre refers to the command and coordination apparatus that is acti- vated in any of the police districts during a rescue operation. The collective SAR management team (including the district chief of police) occupies the strategic level, while the police district´s control room serves as the local rescue centre (PEPS 1, 2011) . Contingency planning and incident management are underpinned by the overarching principles of responsibility, similarity and subsidiarity. • Principle of responsibility: Whoever is in Fig. 2: National rescue exercise in Svalbard charge of a field of work under normal cir- 2014. cumstances will also be responsible for

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The emergency preparedness is also based on The local emergency response: risk and vulnerability analysis, made separately by the Police department and the municipality. Im- • Fast recognition of the crisis. All available portant resources for search and rescue opera- resources called out. tions include: two super puma AWSARH • Quick response from emergency agencies helicopter, snow mobiles, several snow cats and and many volunteers. Many volunteers large vessels. The rescue organizations are well were informed about the avalanche equipped for handling avalanche accidents with through a local Facebook group. tools such as: lighting equipment, probes, shovels • Effective organization at accident site beacons, Recco and snow radar. The human re- • Those who met at the scene were well sources for the government agencies are limited: equipped in consideration to clothing and the police department at the Governor in Svalbard equipment. has nine police officers, with two on duty 24/7. The • The rescuers were provided with food and capacity at the local hospital is limited (the hospital drinks, so they could keep up the speed has only five beds, GP service and one operating during the rescue work. theatre for “damage-control” surgery in major • A sufficient number of people were pre- trauma) five doctors and five nurses, two doctors sent at the scene. It would have made no and two nurses on duty 24/7. Fire department to- difference if more people had shown at the tal, 4 persons in the squad, six men on duty 24/7. scene. The helicopter operator has two helicopter crews, • Extending avalanche evaluation on site including two rescue swimmers on duty 24/7.The and around Longyearbyen. only volunteer organization on the island is Red Cross, counting about 60 persons including special groups such as avalanche rescue group and glacier rescue group.

4. THE FATAL AVALANCHE ACCIDENT The rescue organizations and the whole community’s emergency preparedness were put on a serious test, when the fatal avalanche hit Longyearbyen (Fig. 3). Both authors of this paper were directly involved in leading and directing the rescue and the many volunteers on the accident site, as sub commanders (police and Red Cross avalanche rescue group). At 10:23 A.M. December 19th a large avalanche Fig. 3: Houses destroyed by the avalanche. initiated in the slope below the mountain Suk- kertoppen at 125 m.a.s.l. The avalanche was a slab type avalanche and approximately 5,000 tons of snow avalanched down the mountain side and totally destroyed eleven homes. The houses were displaced between one and 80 meters down the slope. Other damage included several cars and snowmobiles which were also destroyed by the snow. At the time of the avalanche nine of the houses were occupied, in total 25 people. Of those 25 people, 16 were able to get out of the avalanche on their own or assisted by their neighbors. Nine people were missing and buried in the snow and house debris, of them seven people were res- cued by locals and the rescue team (Fig 4), including three children. Two people were killed. Fig. 4: Professional rescuers and volunteers work side by side on the avalanche site.

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An evaluation report (to be published in October REFERENCES 2016) of the rescue efforts is carried out by the Ekckerstorfer, M, 2012: Snow avalanches in central Svalbard: National Directorate for Civil Protection and Emer- A field study of meteorological and topographical triggering gency Planning. They concluded: factors and geomorphological significance. Ph.D Thesis. Arctic Geology Department, UNIS, Department of Geosci- "It is not revealed anything in the evaluation which ences, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, UIO, indicates that more lives could have been saved in Norway. 11-16. the rescue operation. On the contrary, it is very National Police Directorate, 2011: Police emergency prepared- likely that the immediate effort from affected inhab- ness system part I, Norway Allkopi, itants, volunteers and the organized rescue ser- 240 pp. vice, meant that no additional lives were lost. With the readiness and the resources that were available in Svalbard, the rescue operation on the scene appears professionally preformed. It was quick response from both rescue personnel and people from the Svalbard community. There was good cooperation between rescue personnel, and resi- dents in Svalbard in the betting area. It was made an impressive effort under very demanding condi- tions.”

5. IMPROVEMENT BASED ON THE EXPERIENCE FROM THE AVALANCHE After the fatal avalanche many new improvements of the emergency preparedness is initiated, such as: • An avalanche warning program is established for backcountry activities, following the same system as on the Norwegian mainland. • Established procedures for avalanche warning in the settlement. • Established procedures for Longyearbyen when avalanche alert is set to 4, and noti- fication of extreme weather. Cooperation with Norwegian Water Resources and En- ergy Directorate and Norwegian Meteoro- logical Institute. • Continue the strong focus on preparedness and experiential transfer of rescue operations, especially considering the high turnover of personnel in Longyearbyen. • Exercises should include training in urban avalanche rescue. • The Red Cross Avalanche group and the police department will focus on management and training in urban rescue, also considering the equipment needed

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks to UNIS and the Governor of Svalbard for use of pictures. Thanks to Sara Mollie Cohen at UNIS for reviews, and inputs that improved this manuscript.

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