There are municipalities which lead in providing emergency management service to their residents and businesses and others which resist meeting even the minimum legislated requirements. It is encouraging to see a municipality promoting a project which benefits not only their community emergency management program but Canadian emergency management in general. Cumberland BC is such a community. See what they are up to!
Attached to this article is the February edition of Cumberland Now which you can read on line or download to your PC or e-reader. It is a special edition entitled Bridging the Gap Between Disaster Research and Practice which contains a wealth of informative articles written by respected leaders in the Canadian emergency management community.
The Village of Cumberland BC, identified in their strategic plan, the need to enhance communication between Mayor, Council, staff and the general public and they created the Cumberland Now magazine. The February special edition focuses on enhancing awareness about emergency management and it is well worth reading. It is also nice to see the village was recognized with a Community Excellence Award for their efforts.
PTSC-Online was created to share best practices for emergency management, provide a forum for emergency managers, business continuity and critical infrastructure professionals and all Canadians to communicate and collaborate on emergency management to better improve our programs and preparedness. We are pleased to share this issue of Cumberland Now and offer our technology to those who want to use it to improve emergency management by thinking outside the box.
As you read Cumberland Now, please ask yourself if you would like to discuss any of the articles. I know some of the authors are willing to participate in on line discussion hosted in PTSC-Online but you have to tell what topics you want to discuss. Please tell us which topics interest you by commenting on this article. Also we would like to hear from the authors of the articles.
6 Comments
Bill, thank you very much for posting "Special Edition: Bridging the Gap Between Disaster Research and Practice". This is current information and wholly Canadian content! I am confident that Emergency Managers coast-to-coast will be able to utilize this information in their programs, and hopefully it will aid in building a stronger bridge between decision-makers, policy-makers and emergency managers, with the net benefit of building and enhancing disaster resiliency in communities.
In my article Current and Future Roles or Duties of Emergency Managers, I would like to know if Emergency Managers think that the 6 recommendations I propose will actually assist emergency managers with their current and future duties. Are my findings applicable to Provinces and Territories other than Ontario? Your thoughts?
Marg
Marg - interestiing article Lots to mull over....
For Recommendation 1 - I'm interested in what you mean by "overcome apathy".
Can you give some specifics for what this means, and why it's important to achieve a better outcome?
Thanks!
- Randy
Hi Randy, thanks for your question. In my research, elected officials, CAOs and Emergency Managers all agreed that there is "apathy" toward preparing for disasters from elected officials and the public at large. Decision makers have trouble and challenges spending money on potential risks that they have never encountered and don't believe will ever happen, especially when Emergency Management Programs compete for funding with Public Works, emergency services, public health, etc. Hence, we don't do as much pre-disaste mitigation and think long-term in communities as much as we should.
Much of the public does not have a family preparedness plan, sometimes this is because of "apathy", as this will never happen here to us. We think that emergenices happen to other people, in other places. Of course we hope that public awareness and targetted public education will help overcome this issue. Apathy has been well documented in the literature, and practictioners would be able to share thier experiences with this problem.
If the EM Program (albeit the Basic/ Essential Level) was not mandated in Ontario, there would likely be less readiness undertaken by municipalities and ministries. What gets regulated, gets done. Most municipalities will never fully undertake and achieve a program at the Comprehensive Level.
Climate change adaptation may assist us emergency managers, as our leaders need to 'get on board' with sustainable strategies...which will lead to less apathy.
Marg
Marg has researched the topic extensively while pursuing her studies and I support her conclusions. Legislating minimum municipal emergency management standards should help, but for those who want to see their programs improved before it is legislated, I would like to suggest some alternatives.
If your community has a chemical industry which subscribes to Responsible Care they will likely support improving the community emergency management program. Many communities with oil and chemical industries had comprehensive emergency management programs long before they were legislated, because of industry support.
Another resource to help educate municipal officials and politicans on emergency management are the emergency management and business continuity program standrds. Check out the PTSC-Online section on standards to see what is available.
What are your thoughts on how to overcome apathy? The above items are resources, but we need to change attitudes to make a difference.
We've had some discussion on one of the articles in the Cumberland Now special edition on emergency management - what about the rest?
Post a comment