Fake quake tests local response team
The fake earthquake hit just outside of Windsor around 12:30 a.m. on Tuesday, creating chaos throughout the region.
Imagine the quake, registering at 6.5 on the Richter scale, knocking out power to thousands of homes and toppled buildings. The city’s hospitals are running on backup generators and the integrity of the Ambassador Bridge is questionable. The majority of residents no longer have Internet and cellular phone connections.
It’s a disaster like the city has never seen and, hopefully, never will, said fire prevention officer John Lee, who hosted a news conference at the Windsor Public Library.
The emergency simulation brings together a host of emergency responders, including the province’s Heavy Urban Search and Rescue Team, as all groups update plans for dealing with such a disaster. The scenario will play out over multiple days before wrapping up on Thursday.
“All of the players involved, whether it’s police, fire, Enwin ... social services, we’re all brought in and we test each area of expertise,” Lee said.
Tuesday focuses on the over- all management of the simulation, which brings together the heads of fire, police, public health, utilities and public works as they run through protocols as the scenario unfolds. Gathered in the city’s emergency operations centre, temporarily located at Fire Station No. 1, the team walks through each new development.
“One of the big components in this scenario is anticipating what the challenges are going to be 12 hours in,” Montone said. “For instance, how long will we have potable water and how will we have more brought in once we run out?”
Wednesday will include a live demonstration of emer- gency responders dealing with several mockup scenarios, including building collapses and multiple car pileups. The simulations will be held at the old GM Transmission plant on Walker Road.
A massive earthquake may be slightly unimaginable for the region, but similar disasters do occur. And even though they are on a much smaller scale, teams need to be ready, said Mayor Drew Dilkens, who sat in on Tuesday’s session at the operations centre.
“We’ve had tornadoes in the community, we have had small earthquakes in the community in the past, so with these types of things, it’s not really a mat- ter of if it will ever happen, it’s a matter of when,” he told news reporters.
“We hope, of course, it never does, but in the event that it does, we’re prepared to respond.”
Windsor’s annual emergency response training was expanded this year to include the HUSAR team from Toronto. HUSAR took the opportunity to join this year’s simulation as they look to adopt new recommendations coming from the provincial inquiry into the collapse of the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake almost three years ago.