Town council has approved to put in an application for the Union BC Municipalities Emergency Operations Centre and Training Grant of $25,000.
This grant will help with purchasing equipment and supplies to help maintain operations, along with enhancing capacity through training and exercises.
This grant is necessary for the growing number of incidents we’ve recently seen, says mayor Taylor Bachrach.
“Just in the past week we’ve seen two major events. One was the tsunami warning the other day and there was also a major fire in a train yard in Port Coquitlam. I think events like that really underline the need for us to be on our game as local government.”
Bachrach says the fire chief is looking into ideas, such as a notification system, and the fund will help with new initiatives to improve residents safety.
“You look around at North America at some of the emergencies that communities have had to deal with, always, at the end when people are doing an assessment of what went down there’s always a discussion about how the notification system and the management of those emergencies can be improved.”
In the 2018 budget, the town will invest $465,000 in a storage building for the fire department and make sure emergency response is prioritized.