A guide for emergencies

Times Reporter 

 

Funded by a partnership of ATCO Gas and the Town’s Emergency Services, a new emergency preparedness guide was released on Oct. 16, as a valuable resource for home safety filled with useful tips. 

The Household Emergency Action Plan emphasizes the importance of planning and being prepared, by helping people identify and understand types of emergencies that are most common to this area, such as tornadoes, grass fires, or heavy rains resulting in flash floods. 

“For many emergencies, there is often very little time to react. The best defense is to be informed and know what to do in the face of an emergency,” outgoing mayor Steve Grajczyk said. “This guide provides tips on a wide range of topics, to help all of us be prepared to deal with most emergencies.”

Grajczyk called the guide a very worthwhile community project, and urged citizens to personalize it with household members’ identification and information.

“You know, you can never truly prevent an emergency from taking place,” said Doug Brown, senior manager of northeast Calgary for ATCO Gas. “The key message is that an emergency or disaster can strike anywhere, at any time, and this tells us how to prepare for them.”

Albertans saw evidence of that with this summer’s floods. Brown also noted that everyone should prepare and pack a 72-hour emergency preparedness kit, with food and water.

With Oct. 6-12 being National Fire Prevention Week, the release of the guide was perfectly timed.

“This has been a project that’s been going on for a long time,” Strathmore Fire Chief Muir Furzer said. “We’ve looked at a number of drafts, to bring things through to a reality. Now that it’s here, I’m glad it’s here.”

The guide was a year in the making for ATCO Gas and the Municipal Emergency Management Committee. The Strathmore Spurs girls’ soccer team will be distributing roughly 4,500 guides from house to house in a four-day blitz, in a joint effort.

“In my experience, the same (team effort) applies to emergency situations, and we all have a role to play in this,” said Brown. 

Twenty-two other Alberta municipalities have partnered for similar projects with ATCO Gas. The guides will also be available at the Town Office, and at the local ATCO Gas business office. The Strathmore Fire Department can deliver as well, by calling their business line.