The Cariboo Regional District hopes to improve its emergency response protocol in light of last year’s devastating fire season.
To that end, the regional district held five community forums, the final one in Williams Lake Thursday.
At the meetings the CRD outlined the need to: establish Volunteer emergency contacts — a group of volunteers recruited by the CRD to act as knowledgeable “eyes and ears” in the communities to be contacted by the emergency operations centre to provide updates and information in emergencies; develop a community response capacity checklist for every community that includes the gathering of vital information from and about communities in the CRD including the number of dwellings, residences, infrastructure, road accesses, industry, a hazard risk analysis and other relevant information; improve house numbering by recommending that people ensure their house numbers are prominently displayed at the end of their driveways; and encourage responsibility by promoting residents be able to look after themselves for at least the first 72 hours of an emergency; and manage valid permits by the CRD Emergency Operations Centre — other than those provided by the Ministry of Forests. The three-part permits will be issued by the CRD and be limited to economic reasons and will have the ability to track who is in a permitted area.
Area E director Steve Mazur said following the meeting that last year’s fires revealed some communication deficiencies. The meetings, said Mazur, were one way for the CRD to communicate its message and work with communities toward that goal.
Residents in CRD Area D, said director Deb Bischoff, face an additional communication challenge of having little or no access to high-speed Internet.
“That’s a reality,” she said. “I’ve been working with the communities since last year to build an effective communication plan that does work.”
That includes the identification of community stakeholders in certain locations who can collect and dispense information to their communities in the event of an emergency.
Last year was a learning opportunity, said Bischoff, pointing out that through the process the CRD discovered a deficiency in its traditional automated phone out that did not contact businesses. That has now been addressed.
Fire mitigation work has occurred in various areas within the CRD. Mazur and Bischoff noted in their jurisdictions the removal of low-level fuel on CRD properties around the Esler ball fields and at Russet Bluff Estates.
As well as in the fringe areas of the city, on Fox Mountain, and out to Wildwood, 150 Mile House and Dog Creek significant amounts of underbrush have been cleared.
