Update: As of noon Wednesday, the helicopter flyover has been cancelled due to operational issues, according to the North Shore Emergency Management Office.
If you see a low-flying military helicopter hovering over the North Shore Wednesday, there’s no need to deploy the anti-aircraft guns.
The North Shore Emergency Management Office is conducting an exercise between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. that will have a Canadian Forces Sea King helicopter travelling over Burrard Inlet between Deep Cove and Horseshoe Bay.
“We’re simulating a communications outage following a large earthquake. We’re making the assumption that all communications are down except for radio and satellite phones. Part of the Canadian Forces’ job is to support us for disaster situations,” said Merrick Grieder, emergency operations centre and technical co-ordinator for the emergency management office.
The craft will by flying between 1,000 and 1,500 feet and it will be loud, Grieder warned.
“It’s pretty loud and pretty big. It’s grey. It looks like a big flying bus,” he said. “It will surprise people.”
The military will also be taking aerial photos of key infrastructure on the North Shore that NSEMO can use for their post-disaster transportation and logistics planning.
