Harbour Grace deputy mayor pushes for updated emergency plan
By Olivia Bradbury, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Harbour Grace council is looking to develop a new emergency plan for the town.
Deputy Mayor Gary Baker raised the matter during his report to council last month on the activities of the volunteer fire brigade.
“I assumed, and it was probably a wrong assumption, that the emergency plan was going to fall into the hands of the fire brigade to develop for the town,” said Baker. “But not so. They’ll develop, and work with us in developing their part of the plan, but the Town itself and the council have to develop the plan overall, the general plan.”
Baker said Fire Brigade Chief Chris Noseworthy has offered some insight on what council should do and where it can get templates to develop the plan.
“They also suggested that we contact the emergency management division in government to get them out to give us some seminars on how to develop the plan,” said Baker. “They’re free of charge, they’ll come out and give them here on site. So I’ll take that initiative and maybe contact them and see if we can get some help in that respect and work with it from there.”
The fire department also informed Baker that some plans may have been developed in the past. Baker suggested council could utilize them while making a new plan.
“Maybe we can use them as templates and add on to them and revise them and so on,” he said.
Councillor Christina Hearn said she had heard former Harbour Grace resident Sam Snow had put together an extensive plan in the past.
“It’s dated, obviously, but we shouldn’t be starting out at ground zero,” she said.
Hearn added it was her understanding that templates for emergency plans can be provided by Municipalities NL.
Councillor Lee Rogers said a lot of work, time, and details have to go into developing an emergency plan. He noted Sam Snow had spent 10 months developing the one mentioned by Hearn.
Baker reiterated that copies of past plans might help in the process of creating the new one.