Joint exercise tests emergency preparedness in SDG Counties

CORNWALL – A winter storm that began with freezing rain followed by extremely cold temperatures over several days is tough enough for a region to endure. Add in a week-long power outage, a state of emergency being declared, and you have conditions similar to that of the 1998 Ice Storm. What if there had also been a train derailment near Iroquois during that storm? How would civil authorities and local governments respond?

This was the scenario that was run during Exercise Trillium Response – a joint operation between the Canadian Armed Forces, several local governments, and local agencies January 30-February 1.

The training exercise involved about 130 Canadian Army personnel from 33 Canadian Brigade Group, municipalities including SDG Counties and South Dundas, and agencies such as the Eastern Ontario Health Unit, and rail company Canadian National Railways.

Civilian operations were based in the Counties offices in Cornwall, while 33 CBG were stationed at the Cornwall Armouries.

The exercise did not involve any people on the ground in South Dundas, as the scenario played out in the two locations in Cornwall.

The scenario centered on the response to a derailment, which was on the CN Rail line between the Marine Station and Broken Second Road crossings west of Iroquois, a difficult area for response crews to access. Part of this mock scenario included a leaking tank car, which potentially contaminated local water systems.

Local media, including The Leader, were invited to take part in a mock press conference on Saturday, providing a real world opportunity for those involved to

see how media would ask questions to help inform the public. Journalists from The Leader, Cornwall Newswatch, Cornwall Standard-Freeholder, Seaway News, The Record, and TV Cogeco, peppered  officials with questions for about 20 minutes.

The goal of exercises like Trillium Response is to ensure when real events occur, officials on the ground know how to respond. The exercise was an opportunity to learn where some details of a plan still need to be worked out.

South Dundas Mayor Jason Broad said one of those details, water delivery, is where they still need to plan more.

“So from eight o’clock till 10 when we came down for the press conference, in that two hours we did not figure out a clear way to get that water delivered,” he explained. “Whether it was the military, your own staff, what PPE we needed.”

In the scenario, due to potential groundwater contamination at the derailment site, residents would be told not to drink their well water – prompting the need for water delivery.

“So I think it proved to us in that moment we need to react faster, stronger, and have these plans in place,” Broad said.

He continued that looking at storage options for having a supply of water in case of a disaster is something that will need planned for.

This is the first time that an emergency response exercise has had a regional emergency operations centre. Due to the nature of the storm used in the scenario across all SDG Counties, a provincial request for assistance to the armed forces was simulated, which provided the CAF assistance to the region.

Col. Finn Mullally, commander of the 33 Brigade said the winter exercise builds on a spring exercise that was held on the Long Sault Parkway on April 2025.

“I think there was a natural desire to build on that this year,” Mullally said. Trillium Response is the military name for three such exercises that happened across Ontario, including the one in SDG over last weekend.

“There was a nice serendipity there between what we were going to do anyway, what they (SDG Counties) were going to do anyway, and we put our resources together.”

Communications, specifically technology using platforms like Microsoft Teams, and handing off information between operational shifts were seen as areas that needed improvement.

The weekend joint operation took nine months to plan locally.