Are you prepared for an emergency? By Sergeant Eustace (Sam) Roberts May 2018

Here’s the situation: There’s a major power outage across Eastern Ontario and Hydro utilities are working hard to restore service to 20,000 homes. They have estimated that it will be a few days to a week before power is returned to all households.

Fortunately for you, it’s May, so the days are warm and the evenings aren’t too cold; heat isn’t an issue. However, your appliances aren’t working. How can you prepare food and what are you going to do with food that will spoil? What about water for drinking and cleaning? If you don’t have supplies, you can go to the store, but the bank machines aren’t working. Do you have money?

No problem, you say, Grandma’s house has power and it’s only a three-hour drive away. How much gas do you have in your car?

School is closed, so the kids are home and you can’t go to work.

You can see how overwhelming a large-scale incident can become, even one without medical concerns, and especially if it’s expected to take days for things to return to normal.

The rule of thumb is to have enough supplies to be on your own without help for 72 hours. If not, you haven’t adequately prepared for an emergency.

Back in 1998, the region was hit with an ice storm. I was a young police officer in Cornwall and I was married with no children. The power went out and fortunately, we had gas, so we could cook and heat. We had a bit of food in the freezer to tide us over. Others didn’t even have that.

The thing is, my job required me to be able to help everyone else during an emergency, yet I hadn’t prepared myself so I could leave home and do my job.

What did I learn? Now my home has a generator. I have an emergency kit so that there is always a minimum of 72 hours’ supply of drinking water and food for my family. That includes supplies for our pets. We have cash on hand. As I’m always telling a friend of mine, you can have money in the bank, but if they aren’t open, then you don’t have any money. For those of you who thought of the same argument he gives, if everyone goes to the bank machine for money, they will run out if they aren’t re-stocked.

Being prepared to look after yourself means you don’t become another issue for emergency services to contend with.

Here’s what you need to do BEFORE an emergency:

Know the risks in your area – From natural disasters, infectious outbreaks and other emergencies, like bomb threats, power outages and multiple-vehicle collisions.

Make a plan – Emergencies are unexpected, so you and your family may not be together when one happens. You need to think about what to do if phones aren’t working or some roadways aren’t accessible.

Make a kit (– Ensuring you have basic supplies, along with medications is key and check the contents regularly so that you can switch out anything nearing expiry.

May 6 – 12 is Emergency Preparedness. The city of Ottawa offers emergency preparedness checklists on its website. (French link: https://ottawa.ca/fr/residents/services-durgence/gestion-des-situations-durgence)