Community alerting system expands

Residents in rural areas in the Powell River region will be included in an emergency alerting system.

Powell River Regional District directors voted at the May board meeting to support the expansion of the One Call Now community alerting system to serve residents throughout the entire region.

City of Powell River invested in One Call Now in 2011. The service is being expanded to the whole region, from Lasqueti Island up to Savary Island and from Saltery Bay to Lund, explained Ryan Thoms, regional emergency program coordinator. “All residents will partake in the community alerting service,” he said. “We will be doing some testing and learning, so members of the public can expect us to phone them, but not too often.”

In the event of an emergency, the notification system can either quickly dial all landline phones in the entire region or alert only a specific neighbourhood or group of residences. The 2012 budget for the regional emergency preparedness service has allocated $10,911 for the expansion.

The system allows the emergency program to better meet its mandate from the province, added Thoms. “As a local government emergency program, we actually have to be able to alert the public to impending disasters,” he said.

There is a certain demographic in the community that will only ever have a land telephone line, Thoms said. “That’s the way we are going to reach them, so we want the public to also know that it’s important to answer that phone and listen for a moment, before they hang up, thinking it’s a telemarketer.”

Thoms is also having discussions with BC Ferries representatives about the possibility of using the system in the event of cancelled ferry service, for example, on Texada Island. “We haven’t confirmed anything yet,” he said. “This is an emergency call-out system and we’d have to set parameters at what point we would use it.”

One of the instances could be what happened last February when BC Ferries pulled the Queen of Burnaby from service on the Powell River-Comox route for 15 days because of a mechanical problem.

While it was off the route, the North Island Princess, the regular vessel on the Powell River-Texada route, was redeployed to the Powell River-Comox route. The Tachek and a water taxi provided service to Texada. The Tachek also was used for supplemental sailings on the Powell River-Comox route, since the North Island Princess carries about one quarter of the number of passengers and vehicles as the Burnaby.

The issue of communication to Texada residents during the service disruptions was one of the topics discussed at a recent meeting between BC Ferries representatives and members of the Northern Sunshine Coast Ferry Advisory Committee. Texada members of the committee, Sandy McCormick and Warren Kiland, explained one of the major issues during that time was the lack of information.

McCormick reported on a community meeting on the island organized by TAN (Texada Action Now) and read from minutes of the meeting. BC Ferries had “very poor, untimely communications” with people on Texada, she said, adding that public communication was lacking to non-existent and Internet updates were too late to be of any use.

The situation was especially difficult during the Tachek’s trial runs to Comox, McCormick explained. “If the Tachek had not gone to Comox, 95 per cent of our problems would not have occurred,” she said.

On Texada, a great majority of island residents don’t have access to high-speed Internet, McCormick also said. “It’s not a reluctance to learn. It’s the lack of access that frustrates a lot of people. Communications is a big worry for us and not knowing what’s going on.”

McCormick added that the emergency alerting system would be of great assistance.