The Town of Essex is offering residents tools to be more prepared in emergency situations.
The Town has launched new tools to assist residents with a dedicated emergency preparedness webpage, and supplementary guide book to provide critical information on what to do in various emergency situations.
These emergency situations can range from flooding, severe winter storms, tornadoes, and more.
The information can be accessed online 24/7 for residents to view at any time. While power outages can occur during emergency events, residents are encouraged to keep a physical copy of the preparedness guide.
Residents can print the guide at home, or pick-up the guide at Town Hall, the Essex Centre Sports Complex, or the Harrow Arena.
Sherry Bondy, mayor of Essex, says following the back-to-back storms in August 2023, the Town knew they needed to do something to help residents.
"Now we really want to work on resident preparedness because the Town is going to do everything we can in an emergency, but we also can't do everything. So we want to make sure that our residents are always aware of what they can do for themselves, by themselves, to be prepared."
She says it's important for residents to be prepared so they don't panic in emergency situations.
"What do we do for flooding? Can you look at preparing your house for going into the future, we know now that storms are more violent and we want to fix things as much as we can at the municipality, but it's going to take time and it's going to take money. So, each homeowner has a level of responsibility themselves."
Bondy says there are short-term and long-term measures to be prepared.
"What can we do? We need to review our infrastructure models, and see how we can make sure new development aren't flooding old developments. Those are the more high level. But, on the micro level it's reviewing the subsidy program is one, putting out constant reminders about emergency preparedness for individual homeowners is another one."
Residents are also encouraged to sign-up for Essex Alerts to receive critical information quickly in a variety of situations, such as unexpected road closures, evacuations of buildings or neighbourhoods.
-with files from AM800's Rob Hindi