It’s the end of disaster preparation week in Canada, a time when every household is encouraged to think about what they would do in the case of a natural, or even human-caused disaster.
There has certainly been a lot of precedent for needing to take steps across Canada in the past year.
Last summer, when temperatures in British Columbia approached 50C, there were over 400 deaths reported from the heat wave. Some people who found their neighbours in severe heat distress and called 911 for help, found themselves sitting on hold for up to half an hour. In a few cases they were not able to reach an operator until the person they were helping had passed away.
Emergency services were overwhelmed, and people were occasionally left to fend for themselves.
While it tends to be forest fires and storms that get the bulk of attention when it comes to disasters, heat waves are far more deadly, and can cause much more disruption. Roads can literally melt, train tracks can buckle, water becomes deadly for fish and marine life.
But not all disasters are natural. The Emergency Management committee in the city where I live lists hazardous material spill whether from a fixed location or from a train, truck, or ship as in the top ten potential disasters.
Since it’s disaster preparation week I’d like to share a few simple steps you can take to help your household prepare for a possible emergency.
You should begin with a risk assessment. What are the potential risks your household faces, and how likely are they to occur? Create a list, and without thinking too hard about it, try and put them into the order of how likely they are to happen. Also think about how big an impact they would have on you and your family if they were to occur.
Do you live on the 10th floor of an apartment? Then a power outage is not only a real risk but could prove to be a serious disruption if it were to go on for more than a few hours.
I happen to live 100 yards from a train corridor. If a train carrying hazardous goods were to come off the tracks and spill its cargo, I would likely only have minutes to evacuate.
Some people, in more rural locations, have to be aware of the trees around them and how dry the forest is getting. How big of a risk is forest fire, and if it were to happen, what would you do?
Once you have a list, it’s time to start getting ready.
The first, and easiest thing to do, is to prepare a communication plan. If you were separated from your loved ones and couldn’t get home, and the cell towers were jammed with everyone else trying to reach their family and friends, what would you do? Is there a rendezvous point where you would all meet? Have you discussed that in advance? Simple steps like this can go a long way to easing your mind if you are separated and forced to run for shelter.
The second thing to consider is food, water and shelter.
How is your pantry? Could you make it for a couple of days if you were unable to make it to the grocery store on your normal shopping day? If you have non-perishable food you can turn to, how will you cook it? Many people have small propane or butane camping stoves they could pull out in an emergency, and as long as you’re careful to open a nearby window, they are safe to use indoors. Just remember that white gas or naptha is never safe to use indoors.
What about water? During the 1998 east coast black out, many water pumping stations were impacted by the loss of power, and people in some cities began to see their water pressure drop. Other places have recently seen emergency boil water or do not use water orders issued. If that happened, would you have the 4 litres a day per person would need for drinking, cooking, and basic hygiene?
Storage is always an issue for things like water, but even having a few litres on hand can make the difference between having to search all over town for bottles of water and being able to stay put until the worst has passed.
For shelter, if you were unable to evacuate and needed to shelter in place, what would you need to do? This depends heavily on the type of emergency you are preparing for. For some people it’s a roll of plastic and some tape to cover doors and windows to keep a chemical spill out. For others, it’s a back up power supply or battery that will get them through a couple of days of no electricity.
In the end, nobody can prepare completely for every situation. Having an outline of what you would do for the most likely emergencies, will serve you well in case that disaster should strike.
Spending a few minutes thinking about what you would do in case of an emergency can make the difference between feeling in control of a situation and feeling overwhelmed and helpless. In the case of serious disasters, every person who is self sufficient is one less person that will be relying on overstretched emergency services, which means that help is more likely to be there for those who need it.
This Disaster Preparation Week, consider taking a few minutes to make your plan.
You can learn more about this topic on a recent episode of the Environmental Urbanist podcast, that you can find here.
Baby Animals
It’s spring, and that means we are far more likely to encounter baby animals than any other time of year. This Tuesday’s podcast of the Environmental Urbanist will feature an interview with Chantal Theijin, the founder of Hobbitstee Wildlife Refuge, but here is a sneak peek on tips to avoid doing harm while trying to do good.
If you see a baby bird with no feathers, put on some gloves and place it back in the nest, using a yogurt container on a pole if needed. Birds will NOT reject their young because you touched them, birds mostly have no sense of smell. Once they hear their young they will come to it and feed it.
If you see a bird with feathers on the ground that is uninjured, leave it and its parents will help it. You may need to take the dog for a walk around the block instead of letting it into the back yard for a bit until the bird properly fledges.
Listen to the show on Tuesday after 1:00 PM for more tips like this.
Oodles of Nurdles
VOX.com had a thorough, and thoroughly disturbing article about nurdles in their latest edition. Nurdles are the tiny plastic pellets that are the building blocks of all plastic manufacturing, and they are spilling into our waterways and oceans in catastrophic amounts. They are currently unregulated in the U.S. as a type of pollution, so if there is a spill, there is literally no responsibility for anyone to clean them up. And the problem isn’t going away any time soon. All of the measures the plastic industry has tried to introduce are voluntary and largely ignored. Time to call your MP and demand action.
Ontario Provincial and Municipal Elections
It’s election season in Ontario, anyway, and if you’re lucky, a candidate will come to your door to ask for your support. It is absolutely crucial that you ask them questions about the environment if they do so, even if you never plan on voting for them.
Why? It has to do with how the brain works. Simply put, if you see a few instances of something in a few places – especially when that situation is emotionally charged (like an impassioned voter at the door) your brain tricks itself into thinking that what you’re seeing is everywhere. A few well-placed questions from you and your neighbour can work wonders into making a candidate think that environmental issues are top of mind in their riding or ward. From there, it’s a short leap to them raising the issue in caucus or around the council table as one their re-election depends on.
Questions you can ask include:
What is your position on urban boundary expansion?
What is you position on protecting headwaters and wetlands?
What is your position on the expansion of gravel mining in Ontario?
What do you plan to do about protecting endangered and at risk species?
If enough of us ask these questions, they may become bedrock issues for parties that wish to get elected, and especially re-elected.
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You can also hear more about topics like this on my weekly radio show, The Environmental Urbanist, which can be heard Tuesdays at 1:00 PM Eastern on cfmu.ca, and any time afterwards here.
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Instagram: @environmentalurbanist
Twitter: @janoallen
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