Province provides funding for over 100 communities for emergency preparedness

The province is providing more than 100 local governments and First Nation communities with their share of $4.2 million in provincial emergency preparedness funding. 

The funding is a part of a nearly $69.5 Community Emergency Preparedness Fund (CEPF), designed to help prepare for and respond to disasters. 

According to a statement, the investment through the CEPF will support emergency support services, which will provide short-term, essential supports to British Columbians impacted by disasters.

The statement also said it will also support emergency operations centres, equipment, and emergency training at the community level. 

“I’m pleased to see so much interest from communities across B.C. in improving ESS and increasing the capacity of their EOC’s. In B.C., local and First Nations governments lead the initial response to emergencies and disasters in their communities, and this funding will help give them the tools necessary to make sure everyone in B.C. impacted by an emergency is looked after and kept as safe as possible,” said Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth. 

Communities in the North that are the Emergency support services recipients are:

• $175,000 for the Bulkley-Nechako Regional District for regional collaborative ESS modernization
• $20,918 for New Hazelton for emergency support purchases and emergency simulation
• $25,000 for Fraser Lake for the Modernization implementation project
• $25,000 for the Kitimat-Stikine Regional District for upgrades and additions to ESS mobile unit equipment and ESS team training.
• $25,000 for Prince George for the NESST conference 2020 and phase 3 resources to support modernization

The province also provided the following Northern communities for emergency operations centres:

• $25,000 for Bulkley-Nechako Regional District for EOC equipment acquisition
• $25,000 for Fort St. James for training and equipment
• $25,000 for Fraser-Fort George Regional District for equipment upgrades
• $25,000 for Granisle for a Mobile EOC
• $25,000 for Hazelton for supplies, equipment, and capacity-building project
• $17,000 for Houston for training phase 2
• $25,000 for Kitimat-Stikine Regional District for supplies and equipment
• $25,000 for Smithers for emergency power project-generator
• $25,000 for Telkwa for resiliency and public information project
• $25,000 for Terrace for EOC office equipment
• $25,000 for Prince George for exercise collaborative response hazmat tabletop exercise

The projects are divided into seven streams like flood risk assessment, flood mapping, and flood mitigation planning, emergency support services, emergency operations centres and training, structural flood mitigation, evacuation routes, Indigenous cultural safety, and cultural humility training and volunteer and composite fire departments.

The funding is in addition to a $1.9 million investment in locally run EOC’s.