The municipal affairs minister is calling their decision to send out an emergency alert during torrential rain in the Annapolis Valley “extremely unusual”.
John Lohr says municipalities were given the authority to issue local emergency alerts and they should have been the first ones to act.
“It has to be called locally, people on the ground need to make those calls,” Lohr said in an interview with Acadia Broadcasting. “Someone in another part of the province isn’t going realize that there’s a problem elsewhere.”
It comes after a flash flood claimed the life of a young boy in Wolfville last week.
“I don’t think until the moment this happened that we had any information that suggested the Town of Wolfville needed to call an alert,” said Mayor Wendy Donovan.
Under the current procedures, municipalities send a form with the text of an alert to the Shubenacadie Radio Communications Centre, who coordinate with EMO, who then enter it into the system and issue the alert.
As outlined in Lohr’s letter, the province does not veto requests for an alert.
Lohr reiterated those procedures in a letter he sent out earlier this week to 49 municipalities outlining their responsibility with alerts.
He went on to add the province is working on legislation that will improve the handling of alerts.
It includes legislation for the establishment of the Nova Scotia Guard, the establishment of a municipally funded network of Regional Emergency Management Organizations (REMOs) across the province and a modernized emergency management and alert system.
That legislation is however expected to take time and Lohr outlined three ways his office will be working to improve the situation in the interim.
They are eliminating any internal interaction with alerts sent by municipalities and making the process more direct. There will be no wording checks or content checks which had been done previously before issuing an alert.
The province is also requesting that the RCMP and HRP review their internal policies and remove any restrictions on the use of the alert system and instead ask that they proactively expand their use of the system to include any public safety situations.
Lastly, the province is granting municipal police forces, fire departments and other first responders the ability to issue emergency alerts.
The province is now in the process of setting up training with first responders on how to use the system.
Lohr also recognizes that some of those gaining the authority to issue alerts may be reluctant. “This is normal but the reality is that they play an important role and in many emergencies, their members are the first to recognize and assess any risk to public safety,” Lohr wrote.
Our newsroom reached out to the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities for comment on the letter for comment prior to the publication of this story.
