‘We know the community’
Local councillor says last week’s emergency situation shows changes needed
PORT MORIEN — A municipal councillor says there’s a new emergency issue on the books for him this week, as he hopes to see changes made to some of the Emergency Measures Organization (EMO) policies.
“We need to be better prepared to help people in need,” said Dist. 8 Coun. Kevin Saccary. “I will be pressing for changes.”
Saccary said he’s upset with the hardships residents endured over the storm last week as well as the lack of support fire departments trying to help their communities, received from the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.
“The proof is in the pudding,” he said.
“The facts were there, we had a severe storm and power outage and everything to do with it. Our fire departments were out helping people, calling people, knocking on their doors and checking on seniors. When you’ve got that kind of community involvement, we as a municipality should be there to support them.”
Saccary said EMO is holding a debriefing today on the storm situation. He said council can’t attend due to a meeting previously planned with Eskasoni and Membertou bands. However Saccary said EMO will be briefing council this week.
“I’m certainly looking forward to sitting down with the EMO people to discuss how we can better assist people in an emergency situation.”
At the peak of the severe seasonal storm that hit Cape Breton last week, 16,000 customers were without power. Some residents were left without power for the week, including parts of Little Lorraine, Louisbourg, Catalone, Maina-Dieu and Bateston.
Saccary said the EMO plan in place states people should be able to plan ahead so they can provide for themselves for the first 72 hours of an emergency situation. However, Saccary said, this plan is lumping everyone in the same category, when there may be people who are too busy to plan ahead, people are ill, are elderly or with large families.
“What do we do with the people who are freezing to death after the first 12 hours?”
Saccary said Waddens Cove is a prime example of an emergency situation. The area wasn’t plowed for at least three days, which was compounded by the power being out. He said 20 people were able to take refuge at the Albert Bridge fire station, as the fire department wanted to help them, even though the Cape Breton Regional Fire Services stated they don’t recommend people tay in a fire hall overnight.
“That’s because the plan says so; that needs to be fixed.”
“They (the fire department) literally had to carry an elderly woman out of her home, she hadn’t eaten a meal in two days.”
Saccary said fire departments are the centre of these communities, one of the biggest assets communities have and EMO should be assisting them.
“That, in my opinion, was an emergency. We need to make some changes in the planning or discuss some flexibility around the plan.”
He said councillors know their communities and know when situations are at an emergency status.
“We get calls sometimes before 911. We know the community; we should be able to determine whether our community needs help or not.”