Emergency preparedness « Transition Brockville

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Tag : Emergency preparedness (35)

Kingston’s climate change strategy is number one in country

TVO Current Affairs / David Rockne Corrigan / 14 December 2018

The municipality that has billed itself as “Canada’s most sustainable city” since 2009 now has some solid evidence to back up the claim.

The November issue of the journal Climatic Change contains a ranking of the climate-change plans of 63 Canadian municipalities — and Kingston comes out on top.

Plans were evaluated based on eight criteria, including how a community sets its climate goals, how effective those goals are, and how it measures and achieves progress.

Municipalities are the “most vulnerable” of all levels of government when it comes to climate change, explains lead author Dave Guyadeen, of the University of Guelph, because they face the most immediate impacts. ”So we wanted to know how they are responding to it,” he says.

So what lessons can Kingston offer other municipalities trying to come up with or improve climate-change plans?

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Summer of fire, heat and flood puts a focus on adaptation

Globe and Mail / Shawn McCarthy / 07 September 2018

The deluge flooded downtown streets and basements of high-rise office towers, causing more than $80-million in damage and nearly drowning two men who were trapped in an elevator with the rising water.

The Aug. 7 downpour in Toronto dropped 72 millimetres of rain in the city centre in a few hours, the kind of storm that is expected only once every 100 years, according to Environment Canada. Bay Street towers, including TD Centre, took on storm water and lost power; service was disrupted at Toronto’s commuter hub, Union Station; and ground-floor meeting rooms were under water at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

The $80-million is for insured damages, the Insurance Bureau of Canada said on Friday. Uninsured costs were likely higher, while severe weather across the province has caused more than $1-billion in insured property damage, the bureau said.

It was a summer of fire, heat and flood in Canada.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Emergency preparedness movement has gone mainstream

Globe and Mail / Dave McGinn / 20 April 2018

Preparing to be self-sufficient in the event of a natural disaster or some other emergency may have once been seen as the sole obsession of people who believe the end is nigh. But prepping, as it is known among devotees, has gone mainstream. Costco now sells a range of emergency gear, including survival kits containing high-calorie food bars, a hand-crank flashlight, waterproof matches, a whistle, first aid kit and a pocket knife, among other items, as well as a one-year supply of food for four people that costs $8,499.99. Prepper meet-up events have seen attendance spike in recent years, and an increasing number of people are seeking out information on prepper blogs – the Canadian Preppers Network blog, for example, receives more than 20,000 visitors each month.

At its most basic, prepping is having the necessities on hand to survive for a brief period of time, usually about three days, without outside assistance.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

There will be floods — and Ontario’s not ready for them

TVO / Tim Alamenciak / 20 February 2018

The audience at the Provincial Flood Forecasting and Warning Workshop sat silently as the rug was pulled out from under them.

Municipal and provincial staff — many of them forecasters and emergency managers — were gathered at a Brampton conference centre to hear Gord Miller, Ontario’s former environmental commissioner, talk about climate change. What he had to say challenged many of the established practices and assumptions that had guided their careers.

His point was this: climate change has altered the fundamentals of the weather system. All of our old predictions — which were used to build thousands of kilometres of road, drainage pipe, and sewers — are inadequate. The changes to the weather system are so profound that old models and methods can’t accurately predict what’s going to happen; new models predict catastrophes so great that preparing for them could lead to bankruptcy.

“I don’t think here in Canada we understand what’s coming,” said Miller during the talk. “We have no predictability any more. One has to look from the perspective that all culverts are undersized. All sewers are undersized.”

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

You’re just not prepared for what’s coming

Peak Prosperity / Chris Martenson / 01 December 2017

After spending more than a decade warning people all over the world about the futility of pursuing infinite exponential economic growth on a finite planet, I can tell you this: very few are even aware of the nature of our predicament.

An even smaller subset is either physically or financially ready for the sort of future barreling down on us. Even fewer are mentally prepared for it.

And make no mistake: it’s the mental and emotional preparation that matters the most. If you can’t cope with adversity and uncertainty, you’re going to be toast in the coming years.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Brace for bad winter

Recorder & Times / Wayne Lowrie / 21 November 2017

His advice for Brockville residents? Be prepared.

With the possibility of wind and ice, [meteorologist Michael] Carter said residents should be ready for power outages and blackouts with an alternative heat and power source as well as drinking water.

The more frequent storms mean that residents should be sure their cars are in good working order and that the snow tires are on, he said.

“And be a good neighbour, be a good friend, and check in on friends and relatives who might not be able to do as much for themselves,” he said.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

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In passing

So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent… Owing to past neglect, in the face of the plainest warnings, we have entered upon a period of danger…. The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences…. We cannot avoid this period, we are in it now….

— Winston Churchill