Emergency prep makes sense

Last summer, the Fort McMurray wildfire was in the news. The fire which burned for two months forced the evacuation of about 88,000 people from the Alberta city and surrounding communities.

This summer, it’s wildfires in British Columbia, more than 200 of them raging across the province, that are grabbing attention. As in the case of the Fort McMurray blaze, the fires are destroying homes and forcing evacuations.

Unfortunately, forest fires are nothing new in Canada. According to Farmzone.com, there are more than 9,000 forest fires in Canada in a typical year, and they burn an average of 2.5 million hectares or 25,000 square kilometres.

Even here on the southern Alberta prairies, the threat of fire can rear its ugly head. In November 2011, a windwhipped grassfire which began on the Blood Reserve blazed toward Lethbridge, threatening West Lethbridge at one point. The following January, a grassfire northwest of Fort Macleod caused concern for communities potentially in its path.

A Canadian Press story last week about the B.C. fires noted the plight of citizens evacuated from the path of the threatening blazes. Christopher Seguin, vice-president of advancement at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, said terrified evacuees arrived at a reception centre in the city with nothing, having “lost everything and lost it quickly.”

That’s the thing about natural disasters, be it fires, floods or severe storms — devastation can happen quickly, and people can be displaced on short notice. Experts advise having an emergency preparedness kit ready to go in the event of a sudden emergency. Few of us will likely dispute the wisdom of such thinking, but how many of us actually have such a kit? It’s the sort of thing we agree we should get around to some day, but which keeps getting pushed to the back burner.

The Alberta Emergency Management Agency says you should be prepared to take care of yourself and your family for a minimum of 72 hours. Among the items the agency advises including in an emergency kit are water, non-perishable food, a first-aid kit, flashlight, battery-powered radio and extra batteries, cash and credit cards, sanitation supplies, important family documents, prescriptions or medications, and a change of clothes.

The kit should be updated every six months, says the AEMA.

The Canadian Red Cross offers a ready-made emergency preparedness kit on its website.

Most people won’t experience an emergency that will require such a kit, but when an emergency arises, there might not be time then to prepare one. That’s why it makes sense to have a kit ready to go when emergency strikes . . . and we never know when that might happen. Disasters can strike with little or no advance notice.

As fires continue to blaze through parts of B.C., some communities are under evacuation alert and residents have been instructed to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Hopefully they won’t be called on to do that, just as we all hope we won’t have to face a situation where we are forced to evacuate because of an emergency. But it’s a good idea to be prepared just in case.

- Lethbridge Herald

Tickled Pink

Thankful that I have worked well over 30 years and have never collected employment insurance. Just been working hard, day after day.

Ticked Off

Took friends out to Cypress Hills Park for the weekend. To the idiots that need to smoke pot in public areas — keep it in your own yard.

Tickled Pink

I lost my family ring at Strathcona Island Park on June 26. Three days later it was on a lost and found Facebook page. One phone call and I have it back. Thanks to the boy and his mom who found it and helped get it back to me.

Tickled Pink

If they apply the same taxes to pot as they do to other luxury items like liquor and cigarettes

Tickled Pink

If we got red light cameras so driers would stop running the lights. Yellow does not mean go faster.

Ticked Off

Politicians are promoting companies to recruit skilled workers from overseas while young Canadian skilled workers are unemployed.

Ticked Off

That Khadr was detained as a terrorist during Chretien’s tenure, and was brought to Cuba during Martin’s. Harper is guilty of not kissing up to the victim industry.

Tickled Pink

We don’t have to worry that a healthy economy will ever change God’s waiting room. Retired folks prefer it that way.

Tickled Pink

The new front entrance to the hospital is very fancy but we get blizzards in this country. I don’t think those will work.

Tickled Pink

City council facing a fall election, has decided to adopt a fiscally-fit policy. I assume fiscally fit means eliminating non-core municipal expenditures and

Ticked Off

At people who dump their junk, grass and litter in the back alley. You don’t own that property.

Tickled Pink

A few Canadians listened to Peter Mansbridge on CBC. The vast majority didn’t. Hardly a Canadian icon.

Ticked Off

As far as suing the last PM for th amount paid to Khadr. I think the U.S. soldiers who saved his life should have left him to bleed out on the battlefield.

Ticked Off

For the person who thinks, marijuana “dumbs you down,” you might want to mention that to the lawyers, police, doctors, teachers and professionals of every kind who have been smoking it for decades.

Ticked Off

Disgusted that our pathetic, immature, delusional prime minister pays millions to a terrorist and apologizes as well. He does not speak for me. Imagine what $10.5 million would do if donated to a charity like the salvation army. He shames us all worldwide.

Ticked Off

At all the illegible license plates; good way to avoid photo radar fines. Police need to crack down on these.

Tickled Pink

To find out that for sure the coulees are not off-leash and will be monitored.

Tickled Pink

When the Medicine Hat News gave us free tickets to the baseball game. We and our friends enjoyed the game.

Ticked Off

I personally don’t care what your sexual orientation is but I do care that you keep shoving it in my face with parades, flags and painted crosswalks.

Tickled Pink

With the generous couple at a drive-thru who paid for coffees for my son and myself. What a thoughtful deed. We will pay it forward.

Ticked Off

Liberal government will never get my vote. When I read that a convicted terrorist is getting a $10.5 million settlement, my anger with this government went through the roof.

Tickled Pink

That the government has come up with legislation to dispose of mercury vapour bulbs, but ticked off they haven’t talked about contamination when one breaks in your face accidentally.

Tickled Pink

That a wonderful company cleaned all the weeds off the berm on Riverside. It looks great.

Tickled Pink

With $10.5 million in his pocket, maybe Omar Khadr can start supporting his mother and siblings in Toronto, who have been living on welfare for years.

Ticked Off

The kids on Riverside have lost their pool, and school. That block is the only decent size green space on Riverside. It would be a great spot for a water park at the very lease. And don’t say the city can’t afford it.