Local Government Officials recently received a workshop from Emergency Management BC staff, and SCRD Emergency Program Coordinator Bill Elsner. That, along with events in Nepal, a recent earthquake response study from the District of North Vancouver, and the approach of wildfire season, have served to re-focus my attention on the degree to which our community is prepared for the unpredictable.
The workshop was geared towards broad governance topics like management structures, organizational roles and responsibilities, mitigation and prevention, recovery plans and the like.
One theme that emerged was that our ability to deal with a large scale emergency has much to do with our level of personal household preparedness. The degree to which we are able to take care of ourselves, our families and our neighbours for at least 7 days allows our professional and volunteer emergency services personnel to focus on others who may be in greater need than us, or incidents that require their immediate attention.
Below is a link to the SCRD Personal Emergency Preparedness site, and through that on to Emergency Management BC’s Household Checklist and Grab and Go Kit contents and other related resources.
In the event of an large-scale emergency, the dissemination of accurate information is very important. While social media (if functional) will have its applications , the SCRD.ca website and Coast 91.7 FM Radio will have updates direct from the Emergency Operations Center.
Here’s a 30 minute Coast Cable produced YouTube video on our Emergency Services:
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