Independent review needed of N.S. flooding preparedness and response, says opposition
Global News
Both of Nova Scotia’s opposition parties, along with two flooding experts, were in agreement Thursday about the need for the review to be carried out by an outside expert.
Opposition politicians and the mayor of a Nova Scotia municipality devastated by floods say the province should order an external review of the response to the recent disaster.
Both of Nova Scotia’s opposition parties, along with two flooding experts, were in agreement Thursday about the need for the review to be carried out by an outside expert.
“If we are going to achieve what we need to, we need to have climate experts, we need to have independent experts come in and help modernize our emergency management system,” Liberal Leader Zach Churchill said. Churchill called the current system “outdated” because it was designed before the province became subject to frequent extreme weather events.
NDP member Gary Burrill, the former party leader, said it all boils down to confidence in the system. “Public confidence would be deepened and better ensured by having an independent external review,” he said.
On Wednesday, Premier Tim Houston suggested that he was having senior officials conduct an internal review and look into the possibility of allowing municipal emergency management officials to send out emergency alerts directly. Currently Ready Alert requests have to pass through the province.
“I’ve instructed EMO to meet with fire chiefs, police chiefs, municipalities … and have a frank discussion about how we can move forward and decentralize, and to what extent they would want that,” he said.
Among the issues in the flooding response, firefighters have criticized a two-hour delay between the first call for a public alert from the volunteer fire department in Brooklyn, N.S., and the transmission of the alert by the provincial Emergency Management Office at 3:06 a.m. on July 22.
The RCMP have said two vehicles were swept off a road into a hayfield near Brooklyn, located northwest of Halifax, on July 22 between 3 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. Two six-year-old children — Colton Sisco and Natalie Harnish — died, as did 14-year-old Terri-Lynn Keddy and 52-year-old Nicholas Holland.
