Think back to the 1998 ice storm affecting 4 million people across Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, the summer wild fires in Kelowna in 2003, flooding and hail causing $180 million damage in Edmonton area in 2004. No area of the country is immune. With such events it makes sense that each local, regional or district government across Canada has developed an Emergency Plan (EP) to assist emergency personnel respond quickly and effectively to emergencies such as accidents, power outages, wildfires, landslides, ice/snow storms, chemical spills, floods, plane crashes. tornadoes, derailments, earthquakes; heat waves, building collapse or evacuations.

 

An EP contains situational analysis guidelines and assigns responsibilities preventing overlap and confusion in times of crisis. Pre-planning ensures that local resources are used to their best advantage and an EP also details by whom, when and how resources are requisitioned from the provincial and/or federal governments. EP’s also have recovery guidelines.

 

The planning process involves representatives from each local government, fire & police services, health care, public works, transportation, media liaison, communications and emergency social services (ESS), emergency medical services (EMS) and business stakeholders. Guidelines are established detailing the conditions in which the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), sometimes called the Emergency Management Centre (EMC) will be activated.  Larger businesses and the local school districts routinely have input into this process and it includes an assessment of Hazards, Risks and Vulnerabilities.

Emergency Plans evolve over time hand in hand with provincial and national guidelines and in the post incident critique of any local event. Institutions such as universities, colleges often have their own EP’s in place in addition to their involvement in regional planning.

 

Prevention is often part of an emergency plan and Fire department personnel and volunteers will meet with neighbourhood, community & school groups to explain the emergency plan, and educate the public about emergency preparedness.  Active encouragement and publicity around individual responsibility is a fundamental precept in local emergency preparedness. The national guideline for preparedness is the ability for individuals to be able to look after themselves, their families and pets for a minimum of 72 hours.  

Successful implementation of an Emergency Plan requires provision of food for staff at Emergency Operations Centres, for people displaced by emergencies through Emergency Social Services and for individuals and families able to remain in the home but isolated for any reason from access to goods and supplies usually available in the community. 

 

Meal Kit Supply Canada’s emergency meals are suitable for use in all of these applications.