When it comes to community emergency management in Wellington County, coordinator Linda Dickson is the person to see.
On Nov. 19 Dickson was before Centre Wellington council updating them on the past year of activity.
Mayor Joanne Ross-Zuj prefaced her introduction noting council’s participation in a recent training session in Wellington North.
Dickson provided an annual report of activities that forms part of the municipality’s requirements as set out in the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act. Dickson also explained and how the municipality has met these requirements for 2012.
In addition, the report outlines areas where there could be further enhancements.
Dickson said the exercise on Oct. 17 involved all municipalities to test communication procedures amongst staff.
“There were some lessons learned from that,” Dickson said.
She added there was also participation in a secondary exercise on Oct. 18, during which staff from Centre Wellington Hydro were part of an exercise to discuss possible policies and procedures during hydro service reductions and rotating black outs.
“A lot of good things came out of that,” Dickson said.
She is also considering the idea of field exercises next year that would involve door-to-door checks by emergency personnel.
Dickson noted there were quite a few public education items over the past year.
One area she would like to see move forward is the “Inter-operability Project,” which deals with different departments or agencies working together.
Looking for gaps
Dickson explained the Guelph Wellington Interoperability Group was established in 2010 with representation from police, fire, EMS, emergency management, public works/roads and information technology from both the City of Guelph and Wellington County.
The intent of the group to is identify interoperability gaps; identify system performance indicators that will let officials know when a gap either improves or gets worse and develop a strategic plan.
She noted last year Wellington County authorized funds for radios for emergency management. Most have been installed and provided to public works and fire chiefs at this time, Dickson said.
The next steps include training and developing operating standards, she added.
While Centre Wellington was not directly involved, Dickson said a number of recommendations were drafted as a result of the Sandy Lake evacuation last year.
Since then, there have been two native awareness training sessions. She also updated council on the regulations regarding host communities.
“The province is looking at a lot of changes to the agreements,” said Dickson.
She added there has been a lot of consultation with municipalities in respect to the agreement and the standards to host First Nations communities.
Emergency management is also working on the development of a severe weather emergency plan. She noted there have been discussions with a lot of municipalities in regard to the use of sirens for public alerts.
“It’s something we want some discussion on.”
However, she said such a move should be made carefully.
“I know a lot of people think they are a great idea for that purpose, but we need to decide for which purpose and there would need to be public education as to what kinds of threats they would be used for.”
Councillors accepted Dickson’s report.
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Dickson made a similar presentation to Guelph-Eramosa on Nov. 19. Councillors there had few questions about the report, which they unanimously approved.
