It's Emergency Preparedness Week across Canada.
The week long awareness initiative is an opportunity for you to take action to ensure you're prepared to protect yourself, your family and your community during an emergency.
The provincial theme for 2025 is "Plan for Every Season."
The concept embodies the unique challenges Windsorites face on a seasonal basis: from spring storms to summer heatwaves and high winds to winter snow and ice.
Emily Bertram, Emergency Planning Officer with Windsor Fire & Rescue Services says there is no shortage of reasons to plan to protect your family and property, and you can do so by building an emergency kit.
"Keep in mind the specific needs that your family has, whether you have small children, elderly in the home, or you have pets for instance, making sure that you have basic necessities in that kit that during an emergency, you can ensure that you have water, you've got non perishables, a flashlight, different items like that," Bertram said.
Windsor Fire & Rescue Services, along with Windsor Police Service and Essex-Windsor Emergency Medical Services (EMS) is taking part in the first-ever province-wide campaign to tackle 9-1-1 misuse, an issue that continues to strain emergency services.
Bertram says officials are trying to educate the public on proper use of the 9-1-1 emergency service 'When Every Second Counts'.
"9-1-1 is for life-threatening or urgent emergencies, and if you're calling for instance for noise complaints, or let's say you've lost something, that would be the non-emergency line," she said.
The Windsor Police Service non-emergency line is 519-258-6111, and the Windsor Fire & Rescue Services non-emergency line is 519-258-4444.
The city offers its own alert program called 'Windsor Alerts' that provides updates, warnings and instructions during times of crisis.
Bertram says city residents can register their address, and those who work in the city can register their work address as well.
"It's specific to the location that you are putting, so there could be an alert that goes out that's sent to all of the users, because it could affect all of Windsor, for instance, a tornado warning, or there could be an alert that only affects a specific area of Windsor, and so we geolocate the users that are signed up in that area," said Bertram.
Signing up for the free 'Windsor Alerts' program is as easy as going to WindsorAlerts.ca or by calling 3-1-1.