Use of alert system delayed during deadly flash flooding in Nova Scotia: report

A new report on flash flooding in Nova Scotia that killed three children and one adult last year says the municipality of West Hants faced several challenges in transmitting timely emergency alerts to the public.

The after-action review says that on July 22, 2023, fire departments started receiving emergency calls at 12:25 a.m. AT reporting that many people were stranded by floodwaters fed by severe thunderstorms that dumped up to 258 millimetres of rain on the rural area northwest of Halifax.

Within the next hour, the deputy chief of the Brooklyn fire department used a two-way radio to ask the local 911 dispatch service to get the RCMP to issue an alert, and the fire chief also texted the West Hants emergency management co-ordinator to request help with an alert.

But almost two hours would pass before a "shelter in place" alert, using the Alert Ready system, was sent to some wireless devices, as well as to radio and TV stations serving the area.

The report, prepared by the West Hants emergency management co-ordinator, says poor cellphone service was partly to blame for the delay, as was the fact that not all cellphones were equipped to receive such messages. The report says the alerts can only be received by phones using LTE networks or more advanced systems.

As well, the report says some residents received the alerts in the wrong order, and that one of the alerts sent that morning — warning that a dam might overflow — was repeated the next day, creating confusion.

Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo, said a report on flood risks prepared by the centre in 2020 gave Nova Scotia a poor grade on its efforts to maintain communications between emergency responders and the public during major rainfall events.

During the 2023 floods, "this breakdown in communications proved lethal," Feltmate said in an email. "A near three-hour delay between the time the fire department began receiving emergency calls and a subsequent alert to shelter in place that was issued shortly after 3 a.m. is far too long a delay."

Two six-year-old children, a 52-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl died after they were swept away as waters poured onto a rural highway near Brooklyn, N.S., on the morning of July 22.

Feltmate said the centre's key findings about Nova Scotia's deficiencies were well documented by the media.

"Hopefully, the lessons of the new West Hants report are not forgotten or ignored once again," he said.

Abraham Zebian, mayor of West Hants, could not be reached for comment. He and other members of council were expected to discuss the municipal review Tuesday night.

Local resident Amanda Dunfield said the review does a good job of identifying challenges, but she said the municipality has fallen short when it comes to addressing the public's concerns.

"It was a bit of a gloss-over," said Dunfield, a former paramedic and medical communications officer who lives in Windsor, N.S. "Most of the community is saying there's been a lot of talk, but we're not seeing things done."