Being prepared is one thing, but having a good back-up location also seems to be essential as well.
Puslinch councillors adopted its annual emergency exercise debriefing report and annual emergency management report on Nov. 2 following a meeting with Wellington County emergency coordinator Linda Dickson.
Dickson said the report was for information as it outlined what happened during the Oct. 3 tabletop emergency planning exercise. “There will be some recommendations coming out of that which we will be moving forward on”
Some of those covered the reporting process, as staff had some difficulty connecting with cell phones – although they were able to reach everyone within a half hour.
A test of the township emergency operation centre email account was completed prior to the exercise, but was not accessed during it.
Among the recommendations was a need to identify additional locations for evacuation centres and a more suitable alternate centre.
While Puslinch currently has an arrangement with Guelph-Eramosa Township to use its primary or alternate emergency centre, it might be too far away to be effective in some situations. The report also noted a need to outline procedures to move the centre to a backup location.
Dickson said a requirement under legislation and regulations is an annual review of the program. The report, allows council the opportunity to review what has been done and to offer any suggestions.
Mayor Dennis Lever said it was his first time participating in such an exercise. “It was fairly stressful, but I’m sure a real life situation would be stressful as well, so it was a good exercise.”
He noted there are issues when the municipality reaches a point where it was included in one of the areas to be evacuated and would have to move its communications and operations centre. “There was considerable confusion as to how we were going to do that and how we were going to handle things in the interim.”
He said Dickson’s report stated more work is needed.
“Have you ever done that before … Where you pick up and move everything?” he asked Dickson.
She said it is new.
“We have done exercises with some municipalities starting off at an alternate site, but we’ve never picked up and moved.”
She said a move was to get participants thinking about things they might have to do.
“And how well to we want our alternate sites to be ready to go, if in fact, we did have to move – or start there in the first place.”
Lever asked if Puslinch acted as an alternate site for anyone else.
The answer was no.
“So we’re not likely to get a phone call that people are on their way?” Lever asked.
“Not likely,” said Dickson.
She said that is part and parcel of the mutual assistance set up.
Dickson said there was a verbal agreement in place for some time, but more recently, there is a process where municipalities and the county adopt a mutual assistance agreement.
“In that agreement, we can ask of another municipality for certain resources such as locations, equipment or event staff resources.”
That was implemented when Wellington County accepted residents from the Sandy Lake Indian Reservation who were evacuated from their homes as a result of forest fires in Northern Ontario.
She added Puslinch might want to consider if there is another location in the municipality that would be suitable.
“We haven’t really found another location in Puslinch which meets the criteria.”
Councillors subsequently endorsed both reports.
