It is hard to prepare for the worst but North Bay Fire Chief Grant Love says North Bay’s Community Emergency Plan has emergency services ready.
Rail safety has come to the forefront lately in Northern Ontario with a pair of recent derailments near Gogama.
Could something like that happen here in North Bay where rail lines go right through the city?
“We have a Community Emergency Plan that is updated regularly, the other thing that we do is we get information from the rail companies on what types and quantities of products that actually flow through here,” said Love.
The last serious potential disaster occurred on Highway 63 back in May of 2012 where a transport accident led to a Formaldehyde leak which caused some residents with homes along Trout Lake to evacuate.
“That’s a good example we were prepared for, but of course not expecting. The good thing when you take a look at it is it happened at the most inopportune time, like a holiday weekend, because staffing levels are normally down a little on holidays,” said Love.
Love says that mock exercises are done on an annual basis to make sure local emergency services are ready for anything, anywhere.
“There are a number of things that would fall into place automatically as far as emergency response goes as far as community emergency planning goes, and we test those things yearly,” stated Love.
“We have two or three meetings a year as well with the bigger group, and a number of us sort of meet on an irregular time period because we talk about those things on and off all year long.”
