CORNER BROOK — Incredible landslides in Daniel’s Harbour, frozen floodwaters in Badger and the devastating impact of hurricane Igor are all relatively recent reminders that being ready for natural disasters caused by weather and geology has to be at the forefront for communities, businesses and the average citizen alike.
Just how prepared people are when it comes to planning public infrastructure or personal property developments was the focus of a workshop hosted by ACAP Humber Arm and the provincial Department of Environment and Conservation in Corner Brook Monday.
The event was open to the public, but most of those in attendance represented a municipality, environmental organization or academia.
McIvers Mayor Warren Blanchard was among the few municipal council members who went to the session to see what towns like his can do to better prepare for emergencies resulting from the impact stormy weather could have on the local environment.
“We have to look around our community and see what priorities there are and make plans for the ones that are a risk to us,” he said. “We have think about these and probably incorporate them into the emergency plans we have to develop for fire and emergency services.”
Blanchard said thinking about little things like installing larger culverts in some areas to better handle the inundation of water during heavy rains could save a municipality a lot of heartache and money down the road.
That’s the sort of planning Glenn McGillivray said is becoming more and more important as climate change continues to have an impact on the environments where people live, work and play.
McGillivray is managing director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, a Toronto-based centre for multi-disciplinary disaster prevention research and communications. His presentation at Monday’s workshop discussed global trends with regard to severe weather, the trends in Canada and what can be done to address the increasing property damages caused by nasty weather systems and the environment.
In addition to the forces of climate change, McGillivray said the other major factors are increasing populations and the sorry state of aged infrastructure in many areas. While people can build better homes that can withstand wind and water damage, the institute also helps businesses get prepared.
“We’re making sure the mom and pop operations of the country have the ability to put together business continuity plans,” he said. “Large corporations have the resources to do this but the little guys don’t. They have enough on their hands running the company without worrying about putting together other plans.”
At the provincial level, the Department of Natural Resources is working on identifying areas of low, moderate and high risk in order to help communities better prepare for rising sea levels, eroding coastlines and steeply sloped areas susceptible to landslides. The identification involves combining geoscientific data and an area’s history of events to try and get a better picture of what could occur in a certain area in the future.
Martin Batterson, a senior geologist with the department, said the process of environmental change is complex and the serious impact of factors such as the sea rising just a few millimetres per year over a 100-year period can be hard for many to appreciate.
“We need to incorporate these elements into planing now,” said Batterson. “It’s much cheaper to avoid an issue instead of mitigating for it afterwards.”
He said it’s just a matter of educating people that there are resources available to help at the provincial and national level.
