Planning for emergencies
Posted By STEPHEN UHLER SUHLER@THEDAILYOBSERVER.CA
Posted 2 months ago
Pembroke city council has approved a revised emergency plan for the municipality.
The revisions, based on recommendations forwarded by the emergency management committee, help to make the plan current with ongoing needs.
At a recent meeting, Colleen Sauriol, the community emergency management co-ordinator, said the city is required to review its emergency plan annually and to present it to council for its OK.
Most of the changes are minor, including altering some wording and changing the names of legislation and staff positions where appropriate.
Some of the highlights of this emergency plan review and the changes resulting from it:
- The job description of an evacuee service manager has been altered to include organizing and registering volunteers.
Ms. Sauriol said during the city's 2009 annual emergency exercise, it became apparent a location was needed to register the people who came out to help. She said it was determined by the emergency management committee a good place for this work would be the lower level of City Hall.
Deputy Mayor Les Scott said he thought this was a good idea to include in the revised plan.
"This did strike me at the emergency exercise," he said. "What do we do when 200 volunteers show up? I know we won't be sending them away."
- The emergency management committee has applied for Joint Emergency Preparedness Program (JEPP) funding to help acquire $15,000 worth of equipment. If successful, JEPP's share would be 45 per cent of this amount.
Among the items the committee wants to obtain is four 50-foot lengths of orange-coloured booms to help contain spills on waterways, for a total price of $6,400. Ms. Sauriol said the need for these booms became apparent this year when the city was forced to borrow some to contain a spill on the Muskrat River.
Other purchases include $6,000 for a used ambulance to convert into a mobile command post, $1,500 for a laptop computer, $700 for a digital camera which would be able to transmit live pictures to the emergency centre's smart board, $200 for chairs, $100 for a clock and $200 for white boards.
- The emergency management committee has confirmed the use of space at Algonquin College as an emergency evacuation centre, but still needs to hear back from the county school boards to confirm whether any of them are interested in doing the same.
Ms. Sauriol said the city has sent letters to the Renfrew County District School Board, the Renfrew County Catholic District School Board and the Conseil des ecoles publiques de l'Est de l'Ontario asking for the e of their schools as evacuation centres.
"We haven't heard from them yet, but it is likely the boards are waiting for their monthly meetings before deciding."
Stephen Uhler is a Daily Observer reporter
