Almost a year after Mounties were accused of acting independently during a mandatory evacuation of High River following last June’s flood the RCMP’s district commander offered new details on the incident, including who ultimately ordered the sweeping search of abandoned properties.

“It would be the emergency operations centre for High River and whoever is designated by that local authority to be in command at that time,” Chief Supt. Kevin Harrison told the Calgary Herald in a phone interview.

At the peak of the evacuation last year, many residents were outraged to learn Mounties had entered thousands of homes and businesses, seized hundreds of unsecured firearms and, in some cases, caused damage to doors and windows.

Their actions saw the Prime Minister’s Office weighing in, provincial Opposition members demanding answers, raucous town hall meetings and an independent watchdog to launch a review still underway.

And while guns have been returned and tensions have eased, many continue to wonder who ordered the RCMP to enter homes in the first place.

But Harrison’s admission (which was also confirmed by High River’s deputy director of emergency management) provides the clearest indication from the RCMP that its officers were not acting independently.

Ross Shapka, who was the director of High River’s emergency operation centre (EOC) at the time of the flood and has since retired, could not be reached for this story.

But the second-in-command of the EOC confirmed Harrison’s comments.

“It is definitely not a decision of one person,” said Len Zebedee, fire chief for High River and the deputy director of the EOC. “It is a decision of a lot of people that sit down and say, ‘What are our priorities? What are our objectives.’ And No. 1 is the safety of our responders and residents.

“It frustrates me to hear the RCMP put down like they were because they were here to do a job and that was their job,” said Zebedee.

The EOC made the request after an early morning planning session on June 21, after the town had declared a local state of emergency.

Alberta’s Emergency Management Act grants the local authority — in this case the town’s EOC — additional powers, including the authority to enter any building without warrant and taking property to “prevent, combat or alleviate the effects of an emergency or disaster,” during a local state of emergency.

In theory, EOC staff could have asked pet rescuers or utility workers to conduct door-to-door searches while the town was under a state of emergency. A plan to ask the military was abandoned and the task ultimately fell to the Mounties.

Over three days, officer searched 4,666 homes, including 754 that were forcibly entered, and rescued 38 stranded residents, Harrison said.

Homeowners later complained that their houses were entered multiple times, in some cases with both the front and back doors or window smashed.

Harrison said he was unable to confirm whether Mounties were responsible.

“In all the notes that I’ve read I’m not seeing that that happened,” Harrison said. “But I’m not saying that didn’t happen. We were moving quickly.

“The direction that we gave to our members when they were going out there is that before they forced any entry they had to make an effort to find another means of getting into that house without causing any damage,” he said.