Richmond County council applying lessons from Hurricane Dorian

Councillors in the Municipality of the County of Richmond on Cape Breton are getting ready to apply lessons learned from Hurricane Dorian.

Large parts of the county were without power and phone service for four days after the storm hit Nova Scotia on Sept. 7.

A few comfort centres were set up by fire departments for people to charge electronic devices or get a hot drink, but deputy warden Alvin Martell said more could have been done to open centres and let residents know where and when they were open.

Martell said the county has generators and community halls wired for backup power, but the emergency management co-ordinator was new and the emergency plan was out of date and didn't properly list where generators were stored.

He said council met this week with the co-ordinator, Adam King, to discuss the need to update the emergency plan and train council and staff.

"There's not a lot of cost," said Martell. "There's a little bit of work involved with meetings and stuff, and you know, iron down a plan, and I'm sure everything has a cost, but I don't think the cost will be a big cost."

King was just appointed emergency management co-ordinator in June.

He did the best he could after Dorian hit, said Martell. However, the deputy warden said, council met with King this week to discuss the need to update the emergency plan and be better prepared for the next big storm.

Martell said it won't take long to put a new plan in place.

A committee of council will meet with the co-ordinator and provincial officials in a week or so to start the process of updating the plan, he said.

"From what I [saw] around the council table last night, people were really adamant they wanted to get on it right away, so in the next week or so we'll probably have our first meeting to meet with Adam and people from the province."

Inverness County will also be examining its emergency plan in the wake of Hurricane Dorian, which not only knocked out electricity to people's homes and businesses, but also affected a couple of water treatment plants for several days.

The municipality has hired David Coulombe, a former Canadian naval reserve commander, to take over the newly named department of infrastructure and emergency services.

He just started work on Tuesday and is touring facilities and meeting staff before looking into the emergency plan, said Keith MacDonald, Inverness's chief administrative officer.

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