The December windstorm drove home the message about how important it is to have an emergency kit on hand.
Catherine Morrison is the manager of emergency services for the Regional District of Nanaimo and said it’s a good idea to have supplies on hand that will last you a couple of weeks.
“We actually recommend up to two weeks and, this current hydro outage displayed that, some households were out for just over a week, eight or nine days. To have that emergency kit ready and to recognize that you live on an Island right, where some services may not be as readily as accessible as they are on the mainland.”
She said neighbourhood preparedness is important too, know your neighbours, check on them, and come together to support each other.
Morrison said the warm-up shelters were not heavily used, but people did use them to charge their phones, or fill up water jugs, especially in some of the hardest hit areas.
