Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Calgary: Ground Zero

Always nice to find out after the fact that a chunk of flaming space debris had your name on it for a few hours...

The rocket had blasted off from Kazakhstan on Tuesday and carried materials for the International Space Station. And when it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, things got a little scary for the province of Alberta.

NORAD called the federal government at 10:15 a.m. on Friday morning to let them know about the falling debris, and by 10:30 a.m. the Alberta Emergency Management Agency (AEMA) had been notified. The time of impact was estimated to be 10:46 a.m.

Colin Lloyd, the AEMA's executive director for planning and operations, said authorities were only seconds from sending out emergency responders.

"The first scenario was extremely serious, if it had come down in the centre of Calgary for example," he told CTV Calgary.

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